How many times, when you’ve been teaching, have you asked a question about how to resist temptation, reach goals, feel peace, gain a testimony, or protect your family—and you, or someone else, says, “It’s the Primary answers.”
And we all agree. The Primary answers are basic and obvious, simple enough that they can be heard among children in Primary: Study your scriptures, pray, and attend church. Sometimes serving others is included.
Because they come up so frequently, we risk seeing them as a boring, rote list of rules you can count off on your fingers.
And I so wish we could start calling them the “Warrior Answers” instead. These aren’t baby concepts given to children, that we still recall as adults. These are the power and strength we can infuse into our lives as we do battle with the very forces of Satan, gathered to bring us to our knees.
Yes, the War in Heaven didn’t stop, and rages on every day. Those of us who’ve counted several decades in our lives have seen Satan’s armies strengthen. We’ve watched strong souls get born in the latter days because they are desperately needed in the fight. Whenever I see a headstrong little girl strut confidently away, I think, “You keep that, Honey. You’re going to need it.”
Satan is fomenting division—getting religions to hate each other, getting couples to break up more often, tearing apart families, destroying freedom, pitting political sides against each other in a fury we’ve never witnessed before. If he can keep fanning the flames of hatred, he can keep us away from the temple and the eternal ordinances that are literally the point of life.
We’ve long taught preparation for this fight by making it visual with dozens of examples from Ephesians 6:13-17, and from throughout the Book of Mormon: Loins girded about with truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of my Spirit and so on. All of these are encompassed in, and can be the result of keeping The “Warrior Answers”.
In addition, President Russell M. Nelson once added wearing the temple garment to this list. “Just as the Savior exemplified the need to endure to the end, we wear the garment faithfully as part of the enduring armor of God.”
If we stand firm in our devotion to our scriptures, our determination to pray sincerely to our Father in Heaven, and our unwavering commitment to attend church and the Holy Temple, we will have the tools and strength we need to be victorious in these tumultuous times.
But warriors are even more than steadfast and resolute. I shall never forget a Sacrament talk I heard by a General Authority who said that valiant warriors are not people who fight if the battle comes to them; they bring the battle to the enemy.
The time is past when we could sit comfortably—even complacently—as evil forces spread across the world. The battle has been brought to our doorstep. We see standards and morals eroding, kindness and compromise traded for cruelty and vicious attacks. The fire is heating up and we are fools if we ignore it.
We’re studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year, and we might skip ahead for a moment to Section 27, verse 15 where the Lord says, “Wherefore, lift up your hearts and rejoice, and gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, that ye may be able to stand.”
Will we fall to our knees? Yes, but hopefully only in prayer for the strength we need to truly commit to staying active, searching the scriptures diligently, and praying with all our hearts. In addition, we can realize that God can only help us develop strength by allowing resistance, which helps us develop essential, Christlike traits. If life were easy, we would stay weak and frail—very much unlike our Savior. But by meeting our challenges with help from God, the Warrior Answers (found in the scriptures, at church, in the temple, and by praying), can bring us peace, faith, and confidence in a bright future where the righteous prevail. And as God wins the final fight, we are standing right there with Him.
Joni Hilton is a Latter-day Saint author, Seminary teacher, and shares life hacks at https://m.youtube.com/c/jonihilton. Her novel, Golden, is now an Amazon audiobook.
