A Robe, a Ring, and a Fatted Calf & Walking on the Water | Jeffrey R. and Patricia T. Holland

this Brigham Young University devotional by Elder Jeffrey R Holland and sister Patricia Holland was given January 31st 1984 we have an extraordinary opportunity this morning to learn from both Jeffrey R and Patricia Holland together they provide a worthy model for us of what the Lord would have a strive to be they have developed a companionship where both have strong individual identity and yet at the same time they have become one both have greatly increased their talents through faith and disciplined work both complement the other and share and the great responsibilities given to them by the Lord president Holland has come to a profound understanding of education and its central role in the plan of life he has emphasized this position again and again this past fall in our annual university conference he said to us you see I have gambled my entire administrative stance at BYU on one single solitary proposition that we could be an excellent University indeed a truly great University and educational Mount Everest if you will and still be absolutely unequivocally firm in the faith of the gospel of Jesus Christ and loyal to his church which sponsors us indeed I have said to every prospective faculty member coming to join us that we will be great but only because of our religious heritage never in spite of it in quote an impressive characteristic of President Holland is his vigorous and intelligent involvement in the academic matters of the University those matters that make it a University despite the incredible pressures of his position many of which seem painfully removed from the purposes of academic work president Holland is deeply involved in the discussions in the process of program evaluation rank advancement faculty hiring grading admission standards graduation requirements and he participates in all the many decision that are setting the tone of scholarship and learning characteristic of our university and even more impressive characteristic of president Holland is his great love he loves you students he loves the faculty he loves those who service makes it possible for the work of the university to proceed he loves the Savior and his father in heaven what a blessing it is for all of us to be led by a man who loves and trusts us and is giving his life to provide us opportunities to learn in an environment of faith sister Holland is bright and sensitive she's the mother of three more remarkable children she has a spirituality faith and understanding developed from thoughtful serious study of the scriptures and other good books she has continued to develop her many talents including her special ability in music she extends true charity to all whether meeting a foreign dignitary or a student sister Holland obviously cares about the person and not the position more important to me than anything else is my conviction stronger now than ever before that President Holland was called here by Revelation to direct the University mr. Hall there is a story of a minister showing a painting of Christ to a child anxious to reassure him the minister softly softly explained it's not really Jesus it's just an artist conception of him the child looked at the payment painting for a moment and then said well it sure looks like him to me we who are no longer children have forgotten some of the glorious things we once knew according to Young's concept of racial memory when we allow ourselves that fleeting glimpse into our subconscious self we remember more than we know Plato talks of all learning as remembering another writer has said Peter was able to walk on the water until he remembered he didn't know how Peters success hinged on his remembering it was through spiritual laws and not his own that he had power in the frequently painful paths from childhood to godhood what temptations do we encounter that so divert our direction and cast clouds over our memory I have so often heard when I was a child I believed everything was possible I believed when I grew up I believed before I grew up that there was but there wasn't anything I couldn't accomplish there wasn't anything I couldn't be but then I grew up there was anxiety in my home I had self-defeating experiences in high school my mission was more difficult than I expected and now I'm confused depressed and I'm afraid now perhaps you've heard those kinds of comments yourselves not only how we forgotten the glorious things we once knew but we have also forgotten we were asked to endure some trying things we who are children of Christ through adoption and crucifixion we too are to learn obedience by the things which we suffer I recently read the experience of a non LDS physician who has discharged from military service he reported an alarming - change in his civilian patience after being away from them for some time upon my return from the Army he says I noticed a change in my previous patients troubles I found that a high percentage do not need medicine but they need better minds they are not sick in their bodies so much as they are sick in their thinking and emotions they are all mixed up with fear inferior feelings guilt and resentment I found that in treating them I needed to be about as much a psychiatrist as an internist and then I discovered that not even those therapies helped me fully to do my job I became aware that in many cases the basic trouble with people was spiritual close quote no one is more aware than this physician that medical science is needful but as he points out fear controls our minds when faith is not exercised there may I share a quote with you from one I admire who by exercising hopefulness admits adversity developed a remarkable faith Eleanor Roosevelt said I have won the attention of posterity not because I had new theories about the world but because I never reflected the mood of pessimism and disillusionment faith gathers up life pulls it together and gives it direction and so I walk by faith and not by sight close quote despite the pain and sorrow and disappointments of her life she succeeded through optimism which led to hope which led to faith now I think we all want this hopeful view for ourselves and yet we continue to embark on rather hopeless journeys in Alma Aaron says if thou will bow down before God and call upon his name in faith believing that ye shall receive then shalt thou receive the hope thou desirest faith is things which are hoped for and not seen spiritual powers are based on spiritual laws the Savior tells us that this power the power that belongs to him that can show us great miracles greater things and he then we have ever seen or heard comes as a direct gift from God and we can show him that we do desire it jesus said and I quote father thou has given them the Holy Ghost including it's great power because they believe in me and thou seest that they believe in me because thou hearest them and they pray unto me he knows we believe in him because he hears us prayer is the proof of our faith I have prayed for just the right experience to share with you the right example and though this is a very personal one I have repeatedly felt impressed to share it with you and so I am praying that you will hear the message that is intended a few years ago I was having some serious medical problems I scheduled myself into a hospital for some routine pre-surgery testing I'm not sure I even told chef about the tests I was going in for the test and to beginneth they had to inject some iodine dye into my vein prior to taking an x-ray I had a severe allergic reaction and went into an anaphylactic shock all of my bodily functions stopped and three doctors and two nurses worked frantically to revive me at one point during this struggle I came to enough to hear one of the doctors read my pulse which was lower than my father-in-law's had been when he went into a coma and died now I knew I was dying and I knew I needed someone with absolute faith and I called out for my husband and fell unconscious again yet dawned on them that they should have called him anyway but they simply had been too preoccupied with my condition a nurse rented the phone and called him and all she said to him was we're doing everything we can for your wife and now she wants you in less time than it takes to get to that hospital he arrived bolted into the emergency room rather than waiting outside as suggested and with his usual confidence which I have silently watched develop as his relationship with the Lord has deepened he sort of shoved three doctors and two nurses aside and announced I don't know whether you're LDS but I'm going to give my wife a blessing midway through that blessing I opened my eyes and saw his face and I thought I'd never seen anything more beautiful and I told him so he told me sometime later that this was the first indication he'd had that I'd had brain damage I add my personal witness to you this morning that prayer including priesthood prayer is proof of our faith and the proof is rewarded by the Holy Ghost and holy power which Nephi says will show us the way in all things there are miracles there are miracles of faith and we should have faith in the miraculous when Jesus called Peter to come to him across the water Peter for one brief glorious moment for God he did not know how and strode with ease across the sea and this is how we're meant to be may we be so I pray in the name of Jesus Christ amen recently I was invited by president bishop of the Missionary Training Center to come and speak to the missionaries there some 2,000 who were in session any given week of the year I accepted because I've always assumed it was impossible to give a poor talk at the MTC they will take notes and make scriptural cross references if you read them the telephone directory plus I love to hear them sing so I went while following the prayers and the hymns and the announcements and the introductions I gave them a rousing 40-minute reading of the telephone directory proving that indeed one can give a poor talk at the MTC but generous Christian latter-day saints that they are several came up following my remarks and wanted to discuss my message briefly actually most of them either wanted tickets to a basketball game or to complain about the parking ticket hold that financial services had placed on their temple recommends I visited with them about those things and others and the minute stretched into many minutes and finally into nearly an hour during that period of time I had noticed one young elder sort of hanging back around the outer rim of the circle as the other missionaries came and went finally the traffic thinned out after quite a little time and he stepped forward he said with some timidity do you remember me I said I'm sorry I don't have a very difficult questions you might ask I said tell me your name he replied my name is elder so-and-so his eyes then searched mine for recognition but I simply didn't know who this young man was summoning summoning his courage for the ultimate revelation he said Hinckley Hall a faithful friend is a strong defense then I knew who he was that little coated phrase may not ring any bells for you but it meant something to him and he knew it meant something to me on September 7th 1982 I stood in this exact spot and gave the only really angry public spanking I have ever given a group of BYU students the title of my remarks for that back-to-school message that day had been a faithful friend is a strong defense and it had been about students in Hinckley Hall I spoke of an offense a felony falsifying government documents which had been committed in a campus dormitory the April before and which had been widely covered by the press five months had passed but I was still hurting time had not soothed me I spoke of that incident publicly without ever mentioning the names of the participants because I care about honors of morality and honor and personal virtue at BYU I wanted it clear then and now if anyone is still wondering that the behavior of every student at Brigham Young University City matters very very much to me and to what this school stands for so I said my piece and for all intents and purposes forgot about it but as you might guess it had not been so easy for the students involved not only were there the burdens of university and church actions but the civil law made an indelible stroke across the record of some of these young lives there were tears and courts and sentences and probations legally it had been about as much of a nightmare as a college freshman could have foreseen obviously it had been more of a nightmare than they could have foreseen because the remorse and sorrow over their prank I put the word in quotes was deep and rending I recall that very unsavoury experience for you this morning simply to put a happy ending on young one young man's very difficult experience his father wrote me later and said how much courage had taken for him to come up and talk to me at the MTC but he said his son wanted me to know of his effort to try to make things right it had not been easy for him to get a mission call not only were there all the court imposed sanctions and church restrictions but there was the terrible personal burden of guilt and all of this had to be resolved with a member of the Council of the twelve but he wanted to serve a mission because it was the right thing to do and because it was a way for him to say to the church and to the government and the University and the Lord and all who cared about him I'm back I made a serious mistake but I'm back I am making up lost ground I've still got a chance as you know there are other painful stories about transgressions and heartache on this very campus stories involving very serious but usually less public mistakes the prayer in my heart this morning is that to help some of you we might help any of you we might help even one of you have a similarly happy ending to your story a story which you may feel is pocked and blemished beyond repair for some past mistake you have made in short I wish to speak to you of the redeeming love of the Lord Jesus Christ and why his gospel is indeed the good news because of him we can rise above past problems we can blot them out we can watch them die if we're willing to have it so I'm not sure just what your most painful memories are I'm certain there are lots of problems we could all list some may be sins among the most serious God himself has listed others may be less serious disappointments including a poor start in school or a difficult relationship with your family or some personal pain with a friend whatever the list it's bound to be long when we add up all the dumb things we've done and my greatest fear is that you will not believe in other chances that you will not understand repentance that on some days you won't believe in any future at all in what may be literature's most extreme and chilling observation of such debilitating Una's waged guilt we watch Macbeth cousin of the king masterful strong honoured and honorable descend through a horrible series of bloody deeds by which his very soul is increasingly tortured by an agony which knows no repose shapes of Terror appear before his eyes and the sounds of hell clamor in his ears his guilty heart and tormented conscience rend his days and terrify his night so incessantly that he finally says to his physician canst thou not minister to a mind diseased plucked from the memory a rooted sorrow raze out the written troubles of the brain and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart well the doctor just shakes his head over such diseases of the soul and says therein the patient must minister to himself but the anguish continues unabated until Macbeth says on the day he will die out out brief candle life's but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more it's a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing Macbeth's murders our sins too strong for the kinds of transgressions you and I might discuss at BYU but I believe the despair of his final hopelessness can be applied at least in part to our own circumstances unless we believe in repentance and unless we believe in restoration unless we believe there can be a way back from our mistakes even serious mistakes whether those sins be sexual or social or civil or academic whether they be great or small unless we believe we can start over on solid ground with our past put behind us and genuine hope for the future in short if we cannot believe in the compassion of Christ and His redemptive love then I think we are in our own way every bit as hopeless as Macbeth and our view of life just as depressing we do become shadows feeble players on a perverse stage in a tale told by an idiot and unfortunately in such a burden state we are the idiots as we begin to ride up as I'm sorry as he began to write of what he would call the miracle of forgiveness president Kimball said I had made up my mind that I would never write a book but when I came in contact almost daily with broken homes delinquent children corrupt governments apostate groups and realized that all these problems are the result of sin then I want to shout with Alma oh that I might go forth with a voice and shake the earth and cry repentance unto every people hence this book his book indicates the seriousness of breaking God's commandments shows that sin can bring only sorrow remorse disappointment and anguish and warns that the small and discretions involve into larger ones and finally into major transgressions which bring heavy penalties but having come to recognize their deep sin many have tended to surrender hope not having a clear knowledge of the Scriptures and of the redeeming power of Christ so I also write president kimball said to make the joyous affirmation that man can be literally transformed by his own repentance and by God's forgiveness it is my humble hope he concludes that those who are suffering the baleful effects of sin can be helped to find the way from darkness to light from suffering to peace and from spiritual death to eternal life that is what I want for you this morning this new year this new semester at BYU without ever minimizing the seriousness of our mistakes my message to you today is that we can be washed and pronounced clean if we will honor the blood of the Lamb from relatively innocent mistakes or disadvantages in life to the most serious of spiritual sins the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us a way back we must believe in movement from darkness to light from suffering to peace from misery to hope what if Alma had not come back he had made serious mistakes more serious probably than we know he is described at least as a very wicked and idolatrous man one who sought to destroy the church and delighted in rebelling against God those are quotes he was insured another quote the very vilest of sinners the strongest denunciation comes from his own lips when he said to his son Helaman I had rebelled against God I had murdered many of his children or rather led them away unto destruction you'll see the significance of that in his mind so great had been my iniquities at the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror well he may not have been Macbeth but that is a frightening description of a man standing before God but he came back not without anguish and suffering and fear not without quote wandering through much tribulation repenting nigh unto death close quote but he paid the full price and he came back on the strength of Christ's love and every life thereafter both in the Book of Mormon and in our own generation has been enriched because of the life Alma then lived what if he had not had the courage to make amends however severe and had remained at the far end of a road he never should have taken what if having found himself in such a mess he had despairingly despairingly thrown his hands in the air and said out brief candle I am a poor player upon a stage my life is a tale told by an idiot or what if a mistake or two had so crippled Peter that he had not come back stronger than ever after the crucifixion and resurrection of the master a few years ago President Gordon B Hinckley noted Peter struggle after recounting the events of Jesus's ordeal in accusation and mock trial and imprisonment and noting Peters remorseful acquiescence to it president Hinckley said as I have read this account my heart goes out to Peter so many of us are so much like him we pledge our loyalty we affirm our determination to be of good courage we declare sometimes even publicly that come what will we will do the right thing that we will stand for the right cause that will be true to ourselves and to others and then the pressures begin to build sometimes their social pressures sometimes their personal appetites sometimes their faults ambitions and there's a weakening of the will and a softening of the discipline then there's capitulation and then there's a remorse and self accusation and bitter tears of regret close quote well if Peters story were to end there with him cursing and swearing and saying I know not the man surely his would be among the most pathetic in all Scripture but Peter came back he squared his shoulders and stiffened his resolve and made up for lost ground he took command of a frightened little band of church members he preached such a moving sermon on the day of Pentecost the 3,000 people in the audience applied for baptism days later 5,000 heard him and were baptized with John he healed the lame man at the gate of the temple faith in Peters faith brought the sick into the streets on their beds of affliction that quote at least the shadow of Peter passing over them might might bless them close quote he fearlessly spoke for his brethren when they were arraigned before the Sanhedrin and when they were cast into prison he entertained angels and received the vision that led to carrying the gospel to the Gentiles he became in every sense the rock Christ promised he would be of that life President Hinckley then said quote I pray that you may draw comfort and resolution from the example of Peter who though he had walked daily with Jesus in an hour of extremity denied both the Lord and the testimony which he carried in his heart but he rose above this and became a mighty defender and a powerful advocate so - there is a way for you to turn around and to build the kingdom of God close quote of course one of the added tragedies in transgression is that even if we make that even if we make the effort to come back to change to try again others often insist on leaving old labels on us I grew up in a town with a boy who had no father and preciously few of the other blessings of life the young men in our community found it remarkably easy to tease and to taunt and to bully him and in the process of it all he made some mistakes though I cannot to this hour believe his mistakes were as serious as those of his latter-day Saint friends who made life so miserable for him he began to drink and to smoke and gospel principles which had never meant much to him now meant even less he'd been cast in a role by LDS friends who should have known better and he began to play the part perfectly soon he drank even more went to school even less and went to church not of all and then one day he was gone some said they thought he'd joined the army that was about 1959 or so 15 or 16 years later it was reported to me that he tried to come back to that little community I say he tried to come back he had found the significance of the gospel in his life he'd married a wonderful girl and had a beautiful little family but he discovered something upon his return he had changed but some of his old friends hadn't and they were unwilling to let him escape his past this was hard for him and it was hard for his family they bought a little home and started a little business but they struggled both personally and professionally and finally they moved away for reasons that don't need to be nor should be detailed here the story goes on to a rather unhappy ending he died a year ago at age 44 that's too young to die these days and it's certainly too young to die away from home when a battered weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore after having fought strong winds and rough ways which he probably never should have challenged in the first place those of us who might have had better judgment or perhaps simply better luck ought not to row out to his side beat him on the head with our oars and shove him back underwater that's not what boats are made for but that's what we do to each other in General Conference a few years ago elder David B hate told us this he said that Arturo Toscanini the late famous conductor of the New York Philharmonic received a brief crumpled letter from a lonely sheep herder in the remote reaches of mountain Wyoming it read mr. conductor I have only two possessions a radio and an old violin the batteries on my radio are getting low and will soon die my violin is out of tune and I can't use it please help me next Sunday when you begin your concert sound allowed a so I can tune my a string then I can tune the others when my radio batteries are dead then I'll still have my violin at the beginning of his next nationwide radio concert from Carnegie Hall Toscanini stepped forward and announced for a dear friend and listener back in the mountains of Wyoming the orchestra will now sound an a the musicians all joined together in a perfect note that lonely sheep herder only needed one just a little help to get back in tune he needed someone who cared to assist him with just one string after that the others would be relatively easy in the early years of this church the Prophet Joseph Smith had no more faithful aid than William Weins Phelps brother Phelps a former newspaper editor had joined the church in Kirtland and was of such assistance to those early leaders that they sent him as one of the Latter day Saints one of the first Latter day Saints to the New Jerusalem Jackson County Missouri there he was called by the Lord to the stake presidency of that Center stake of Zion but then troubles developed first there were these were largely ecclesiastical aberrations but later there were financial improprieties things became so serious that the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that if Phelps did not repent he would be removed out of his place he did not repent and he was excommunicated on March 10th 1838 the prophet Joseph and others immediately tried to love Phelps back into the fold but he would have nothing out and then in the fall of that violent year ww Phelps along with others signed a deadly damaging affidavit against the Prophet and other leaders of the church the result was quite simply that Joseph Smith was sentenced to be publicly executed on the town square in Far West Missouri Friday morning November 2nd 1838 through the monument monumental courage of general Alexander Donathan the Prophet was rather miraculously spared the execution Phelps and others had precipitated but he was not spared spending five months November through April in several Missouri prisons the most noted of which was that Pitt ironically known as Liberty jail I do not need to recount for you the suffering of the Saints through that period the anguish of those not captive was in many ways more severe than those imprisoned the persecution intensified until the saints saw yet again to find another refuge from the storm with Joseph in Chains praying for their safety in giving some direction by letter they made their way toward commerce Illinois a malaria swamp on the Mississippi River where they would try once more to build the city of Zion and so much of this travail so much of this torment and heartache due to men of their own Brotherhood like W W Phillips but we're speaking today of happy endings to very difficult years later with great anguish and remorse of conscience Phelps wrote to Joseph Smith in Nauvoo brother Joseph I am as the prodigal son I have seen the folly of my way and I tremble tremble at the Gulf I have passed I asked my old brethren to forgive me and though they chasing me to death yet I will die with them for their God is my god the least place with them is enough for me it's bigger and better than all Babylon I know my situation you know what God knows it and I want to be saved with my friends if they will help me I've done wrong and I'm sorry I ask forgiveness I want your fellowship but if you cannot grant that at least grant me your peace and your friendship for we are brethren and our communion used to be sweet well the Prophet Joseph wrote back in a flash I know of no private document or personal response in the life of Joseph Smith or anyone else for that matter which so powerfully demonstrates the magnificence of his soul there is a lesson here for every one of us who claims to be a disciple of Christ he wrote dear brother Phelps you may in some measure realize what my feelings were when we read your letter we have suffered much in consequence of your behavior the cup of Gaul already full for mortals to drink was indeed filled to overflowing when you turned against us however that cup has been drunk the will of our Father has been done and we are yet alive for which we thank the Lord and having been delivered from the hands of wicked men by the mercy of our God we say it is your privilege to be delivered from the powers of the adversary be brought into the Liberty of God's dear children and again take your stand among the saints of the Most High and by diligence humility and love unfeigned commend yourself to our God and your God and the Church of Jesus Christ believing your confession to be real and your repentance genuine I shall be happy once again to give you the right hand of fellowship and rejoice over the returning prodigal come on dear brother since the war is past for friends at first our friends again then at last yours as ever Joseph Smith junior it only adds to the poignant of this particular prodigal returned that exactly four years later almost to the day it would be WW phelps selected to preach Joseph Smith's funeral sermon in those terribly tense and emotional circumstances in Nauvoo furthermore it would be WWF ELPS who would memorialize the martyred profit with his hymn of adoration praise to the man having been too foolish Schwimmer pulled back to safety by the very man he had sought to destroy Phelps must have had unique appreciation for the stature of a friend when he penned great is his glory and endless his priesthood ever and ever the keys he will hold faithful and true he will enter the kingdom crowned in the midst of the prophets of old I asked that we sing a verse of that in this morning only for this reason that the next time you sing it you remember what it meant to w w Phelps to have a chance away a hand to come back perhaps the most encouraging and compassionate parable in all of Holy Writ is the story of the prodigal son I close with Mary Lyman Henry's poetic expression of it entitled to any who have watched for a son's returning he watched his son gather all the goods that were his lot anxious to be gone from tending flocks and the dullness of the fields he stood by the olive tree gate long after the caravan disappeared where the road climbs the hills on the far side of the valley of the valley into infinity through changing seasons he spent the light in a great chair facing the far country and that speck of road on the horizon mocking friends said he will not come whispering servants said the old man has lost his senses a chiding son said you never should have let him go a grieving wife said you need rest and sleep so she covered his drooping so shoulders his calloused knees when the east winds blew chill until that day until that day a form familiar even at infinity in shreds alone stumbling over pebbles and while he was still a great way off his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him god bless us to help each other come back we're all prodigal one way or another god bless us to come home to a father finding waiting there a robe on a ring and a fatted calf I pray in the name of him who made it possible even the Lord Jesus Christ amen for more information on this program please visit our website at BYU broadcasting org this Brigham Young University devotional by Elder Jeffrey R Holland and sister Patricia Holland was given January 31st 1984 you

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Keywords: BYU Devotional, Brigham Young University, faith, trust, hope, forgiveness, atonement, repentance, prayer, strength

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Length: 43min 52sec (2632 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2013