A Great Work For Thee to Do

Elder Steven R. Bangerter related a conversation he had with his father when he was thirteen years old in the most recent general conference. He told how his father took him aside and asked him what his goals in life were. He said, “I knew two things for sure: I wanted to be taller, and I wanted to go camping more often. I was a simple soul. He smiled, paused for a moment, and said: ‘Steve, I’d like to share something with you that’s very important to me. I’ve prayed that our Heavenly Father will cause what I say now to be indelibly imprinted in your mind and on your soul so that you’ll never forget.’ My father had my full attention in that moment. He turned and looked at me in the eyes and said, ‘Son, protect the private times of your life.’ There was a long pause as he let the meaning sink deep into my heart. He then continued, ‘You know, those times when you’re the only one around and no one else knows what you’re doing? Those times when you think, “Whatever I do now doesn’t affect anyone else, only me”?’ Then he said, ‘More than any other time in your life, what you do during the private times of your life will have the greatest impact on how you confront challenges and heartache you will face; and what you do during the private times of your life will also have a greater impact on how you confront the successes and joy you will experience than any other time in your life.’” I think there are two ways to apply this wise counsel. The first is that when we are alone we should shun evil and harmful things—whether in what we think or view or listen to or participate in. We should never relax our standards because nobody is looking. The second way to protect the private times in our life is to fill it with those things that will connect us with our Father in Heaven and the Savior. If we never have private communion with the Lord, we will not have the guidance we need to fulfill our mission in life. As the Lord invited us, “Be still and know that I am God” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:16). To do that we need to protect our private times and in stillness turn to Him.

               Elder Bangerter gave this encouragement, “Our Father in Heaven will answer your prayers, especially your prayers offered during the private times of your life. He will reveal to you your foreordained gifts and talents, and you will feel His love envelop you, if you will sincerely ask and genuinely desire to know. As you protect the private times of your life, your participation in the ordinances and covenants of the gospel will be more meaningful. You will more fully bind yourself to God in the covenants you make with Him, and you will be lifted to have greater hope, faith, and assurance in the promises He has made to you. Do you want to know God’s plan for you? I bear witness He wants you to know, and He inspired His prophet to the world to invite each of us to pray and receive this eye-opening experience for ourselves.” I think the story of Moses is evidence of the truthfulness of this invitation. After Moses fled from Egypt to Midian, he found the Lord. We have this account: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” After the Lord summarized the difficult situation of his people in bondage to Pharoah, he said this to Moses: “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:1-10). Moses had gone to a very private place—the backside of the desert and up in the mountain—where he found the Lord through earnest seeking. It was there that he received his great commission to deliver the children of Egypt out of bondage and saw what the Lord wanted him to accomplish. Because he sought privately the Lord, he learned the mission the Lord had foreordained for him.

               I love the Lord’s words to Thomas B. Marsh in our dispensation: “I, the Lord, have a great work for thee to do, in publishing my name among the children of men” (Doctrine and Covenants 112:6). Surely, He would say the same to each of us—the Lord has a great work for us to accomplish based on our talents and special gifts. But we must still reach out in many private moments, diligently seeking to understand His desires for us. “Our Heavenly Father desires to reveal to you your personal foreordination, and He will do so as you seek to learn and follow His will.”