42. An Undelivered Talk

A talk I prepared for the first sacrament meeting of the new school year (on Sunday evening, August 31, 1975) in the BYU 11th Branch, Brigham Young University First Stake, where I was serving as first counselor in the branch presidency. Student congregations at this time were organized into branches rather than wards so that young counselors such as I (I was 26 years old at the time) could continue to serve as elders after leaving the university rather than being ordained high priests. This was about four and a half years before the consolidated meeting schedule was introduced, and sacrament meetings were usually held in the afternoon or evening separate from other Sunday meetings. For various reasons now lost to memory, I never actually gave this talk.

I’m going to try an experiment on you tonight. Never before in my life have I written a talk that I was going to give in church. In the work I do, I sometimes write for others, but I’ve never done it for myself. For a variety of reasons, which I won’t bother you with now, I’m doing it tonight for the first time—partly because there’s a lot I want to say and if I didn’t control myself I would take at least twice as much time as I should.

Let me tell you a bit about me and my family. I have a wonderful wife named Claudia and three precious little children—Michael Adam, who will be two the day after tomorrow; Rebecca, who turned one last week; and Rachael, who is just a little over three weeks old. Both Claudia and I graduated from BYU—she in elementary education, I in English and Portuguese. I served my mission about five years ago in what was then the Brazil North Mission.

For about the last year and a half, I have been working in Salt Lake City for the Presiding Bishopric. I guess my profession would be classified as a technical writer.

My family is very important to me. And I suppose I should mention right now at the beginning that we hold Monday nights sacred. For you home evening is supposed to be only one hour long. For us, because we are a real family, home evening is exactly that—all evening long, from 6:00 P.M., which is when I get home from work, until the next morning when I get up. What I’m saying is simply this: please do not call us on Monday nights. I’m happy to serve you any other day, at any other time, but please Monday night is sacred.

Now, after that little plug, let me get to my talk.

The late Richard L. Evans once said, “Meetings are where you go to learn things you already know but don’t have the time to do because of so many meetings” (quoted by President Harold B. Lee, Regional Representatives’ seminar, Apr. 3, 1969). Somehow I hope we don’t fall into that trap.

The Lord gave us some compelling reasons for being here tonight in sacrament meeting. In the Doctrine and Covenants we read: “And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go up to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day” (D&C 59:9).

Elsewhere we read: “And now, behold, I give unto you a commandment, that when ye are assembled together ye shall instruct and edify each other, that ye may know how to act and direct my church, how to act upon the points of my law and commandments, which I have given.

“And thus ye shall become instructed in the law of my church” (D&C 43:8–9).

So here are two reasons for our being here tonight. First, to partake of the sacrament and, second, to be instructed and edified. I would like to spend a few minutes on this second reason.

President Harold B. Lee made this statement: “One of our brethren who was asked to speak in a sacrament meeting made a statement I would wish could be trumpeted throughout this entire Church. The brother said: ‘No person has a right to occupy the pulpits of this Church in our sacrament meetings unless he is there to preach the gospel.’ I wish that could be understood—that the very purpose of the invitation is to preach the gospel” (Regional Representatives’ seminar, Oct. 3, 1968).

I mention this because throughout this coming year, during these next two semesters, most of you will have an opportunity to stand here to give a talk—either in Sunday School or sacrament meeting. The way we’ve handled it in the past, and we expect to continue again this year, is to invite each of the groups to prepare and provide the services each Sunday. Our experience over the past two years has been that we’ve had some marvelous, inspirational, and instructive meetings—the kind of meeting I think President Lee was referring to in this quote I just read.

One thing I’ve noticed is that often the best talks are those that draw heavily on personal experiences. In fact, it bothers me to have someone stand and excuse himself for using personal examples. I wonder if they’ve ever heard a General Authority speak. President Kimball, for example, has often masterfully used examples from his childhood or youth to teach the great lessons he has to teach. The most powerful witness of the gospel you can bear will grow out of your own struggles, your own confrontations, your own obedience to specific principles. That which you struggle with and overcome is that which the Spirit will bear witness of to you. So never feel ashamed to share yourselves, as the Spirit moves you, in teaching a gospel principle or in bearing witness.

I think one of the most moving experiences in my life came at the close of the October conference two years ago as President Lee was closing the conference. (And, incidentally, it was his very last conference address before he died.) This is what President Lee said:

“And so, in the closing moments of this conference, I have been moved as I have never been moved before in all my life. If it were not for the assurance that I have that the Lord is near to us, guiding, directing, the burden would be almost beyond my strength, but because I know that he is there, and that he can be appealed to, and if we have ears to hear attuned to him, we will never be left alone. . . .

“I thank the Lord that I may have passed some of the tests, but maybe there will have to be more before I shall have been polished to do all that the Lord would have me do.

“Sometimes when the veil has been very thin, I have thought that if the struggle had been still greater that maybe then there would have been no veil.”

And then he makes this powerfully humble statement: “I stand by, not asking for anything more than the Lord wants to give me, but I know that he is up there and he is guiding and directing” (Ensign, Jan. 1974, 129).

I think contained in that last sentence is a great lesson for each of us. “I stand by, not asking for anything more than the Lord wants to give me, but I know that he is up there and he is guiding and directing.” If we could all have that kind of faith! How often do we ask for that which the Lord, in His wisdom, is not yet willing to give us? I’m sometimes guilty of that.

It reminds me of Alma’s exclamation: “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!” (Alma 29:1).

Now that certainly sounds like a righteous desire, especially today in light of President Kimball’s far-reaching and inspired vision of missionary work. But then Alma wisely and humbly adds this: “But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me” (Alma 29:3).

Now, if we can change gears a little, there are two other things I want to mention before I sit down. First is about the payment of fast offerings. My wife Claudia tells me that when she came here to BYU as a student it was well into her second year of school before it ever occurred to her that she was supposed to be paying fast offerings. She had grown up in the Church in an active, faithful home, where her parents were always faithful in paying their tithes and offerings. But growing up Claudia had never paid fast offerings herself.

So I hope this doesn’t come as a surprise to any of you. A minimal offering, and let me emphasize the word minimal, is defined as the cost of the meals that you don’t eat while you are fasting. If we fully understand the law of the fast, then we know that our fast is incomplete until we have given a generous offering to the bishop, who uses these sacred funds to care for the poor, the needy, and the destitute.

The Lord has said this about it: “I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.

“And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.

“But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.

“For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare” (D&C 104:14–17).

And then to us who have been blessed with this abundance He mentions, the Lord gives this significant warning: “Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of the gospel, unto the poor and needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment” (D&C 104:18).

If we give according to the law of the gospel, if we give in the Lord’s own way, we will pay a generous fast offering—for that is the Lord’s way. There is no system of charity that I know of that is more selfless or more pure or more effective. In the first place, when we give to the poor by paying fast offerings no one ever knows who paid the money. Because the giving is in secret, the reward in heaven will be greater. Second, the system is so much more effective than any other charity on earth. I read in the news that some well-known charities in this country have an overhead as big as 60 percent or more. That means that 60 percent of the money I might give them does not go directly to the purpose for which I give it. Even the best charities have a 25 to 30 percent overhead. When I pay fast offerings, I can be confident that every single penny, without exception, goes to benefit the poor. There is no overhead.

President Kimball has said: “I think that when we are affluent as many of us are that we ought to be very, very generous. . . . I think we should be very generous and give, instead of the amount we saved by our two meals of fasting, perhaps much, much more—ten times more where we are in a position to do it” (General Welfare Services meeting, Apr. 6, 1974, 12).

Obviously, many of you are not in a position to do that. But listen to this promise President Marion G. Romney makes: “If we will double our fast offerings, we shall increase our own prosperity, both spiritually and temporally. This the Lord has promised, and this has been the record” (talk to the Priesthood Board, Mar. 6, 1974, 10).

I can personally bear record that that statement is true. Every time Claudia and I find that our budget is too tight, and we see no possible way to make ends meet, we just pay a little more fast offerings. We have never been failed; the Lord has stood by His promise every time, and we have always had enough somehow.

I mentioned that I had two other areas I wanted to discuss with you. Paying fast offerings was one of them. I’ll be brief on the second, since the time is running fast. President Lee a few years ago asked these questions in a Regional Representatives’ seminar, and I quote:

“Are you brethren continually increasing your testimony by diligent study of the scriptures? Do you have a daily habit of reading the scriptures? If we’re not reading the scriptures daily, our testimonies are growing thinner, our spirituality isn’t increasing in depth” (Regional Representatives’ seminar, Dec. 12, 1970).

And then President Romney has said this: “The older I grow in the service, the more I turn to the scriptures and try to understand the meaning of what the Lord has said. . . . It is worth our time to study the scriptures and see the depth, as far as we can, of the Lord’s teachings” (General Welfare Services meeting, Oct. 5, 1974, 12).

Scripture study is to the spirit what food is to the body. And some of us seem to be on spiritual diets. We can go days and even weeks at a time never feeding our spirits, and consequently our testimonies grow thinner and thinner until we find ourselves spiritually malnourished.

I can make this promise: If you will consistently and prayerfully search the scriptures for a few moments each day—for 15 minutes if that’s all the time you have—your testimonies will increase, your faith will grow, and you will understand more fully the meaning of what the Lord has said.

And remember, if you’re too busy to study the scriptures, you’re simply too busy.