The following is excerpted from the Church Newsroom. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared three key lessons with students at Brigham Young University on Tuesday to help them build spiritual resiliency for the days ahead.
“You may be asked to face more [difficulties in life] than you think you can — and certainly more than you want,” the former BYU president (1980–1989) and 27-year member of the Twelve said.
He pointed to some of the heartbreaking hardships endured by Troy and Deedra Russell of the Church’s Dutchman Pass Ward in Henderson, Nevada. This family, as Elder Holland detailed in October 2016, lost their 9-year-old son to an accident in May 2015. Troy accidently ran over their son with his truck. And late last year, Deedra was hit and severely injured by a drunk driver while heading north on I-15 in southern Utah. She has been in the hospital ever since. Her recovery has included 18 surgeries — with more to come.
One lesson the Russells’ experience teaches us, the Apostle explained, is that “there is a loving reason to obey gospel laws and a worthy reason to follow gospel principles.” Said another way, “the keeping of God’s commandments really is important” and “revealed do’s and don’ts are for a purpose.”
“We ought to acknowledge,” Elder Holland continued, “the tears of a Heavenly Father who simply asks us to take care of one another, to be careful rather than reckless with the well-being of our sisters and our brothers. Childlike obedience to His parental calls and divine warnings will spare us and others agony in the end. Thus the cry of His Only Begotten Son: ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments.’ It is part of the apostolic burden for us to stand with the Savior in that request. We always extend our love — always — but we are morally obligated to ask for obedience to the commandments as evidence of that affection.”
A second lesson, Elder Holland said, is the need to forgive others “for the relief and peace it brings us.”
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