A Peculiar People

In the most recent general conference, Brother Bradley Wilcox highlighted this question that the youth often have: “Why? Why must Latter-day Saints live so differently from others?” He continued, “I know it’s hard to be different—especially when you are young and want so badly for other people to like you. Everyone wants to fit in, and that desire is magnified to unhealthy proportions in today’s digital world filled with social media and cyberbullying. So, with all that pressure, why do Latter-day Saints live so differently?” He gave several possible reasons, but the one that he focused on was this: “We become ‘children of the covenant.’ That sets us apart. That gives us access to the same blessings our forefathers and foremothers received, including a birthright.” It is because of our covenants with Him that we are different, and this should motivate us to act differently from the world because we are called to bless the whole world as His covenant people. Our covenants make us “a peculiar people” because we commit to keeping our commitments with God in ways that the world generally would not (1 Peter 2:9). Brother Wilcox compared our role on the earth to the crew members on a cruise—they must be different from the passengers and do not do the same things as the passengers because they have a special purpose as crew members. In the key part of the analogy, he said this: “And before you become discouraged by all the extra obligations, please remember that crew members receive something the other passengers do not: compensation.” Though our covenants demand more of us, they also are the gateway to blessings from the Lord otherwise unavailable. Brother Wilcox quoted these words of Elder Andersen, “There is a compensatory spiritual power for the righteous.” This includes “greater assurance, greater confirmation, and greater confidence.” At least part of our compensation for keeping our covenants with the Lord is divine power to overcome the challenges of mortality and to help bring others back home to Him.

                I was struck by this injunction from Victor Hugo in Les Misérables: “Let us not weary of repeating, and sympathetic souls must not forget that this is the first of fraternal obligations, and selfish hearts must understand that the first of political necessities consists in thinking first of all of the disinherited and sorrowing throngs, in solacing, airing, enlightening, loving them, in enlarging their horizon to a magnificent extent, in lavishing upon them education in every form, in offering them the example of labor, never the example of idleness, in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the universal aim…. in a word, in evolving from the social apparatus more light and more comfort for the benefit of those who suffer and those who are ignorant.” One of our greatest obligations is to love and bless those in need around us, and to do that we must be different from them. As Brother Wilcox quoted Sister Ardeth Kapp, “You can’t be a life[guard] if you look like all the other swimmers on the beach.” As the Lord’s covenant people, we should be committed not to being “normal” like the world, but being different so that we can lift the world. We are to fulfill the promise of the Lord to Abraham as partakers of that covenant: “In thy seed… shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal” (Abraham 2:11). Part of how we do that is by following this invitation from the Lord: “Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (Doctrine and Covenants 81:5). As we are faithful to our covenants, accepting when necessary to be different from the world, we will have the power to succor the weak and lift up the downtrodden. Brother Wilcox finished his talk with these powerful words: “‘O youth of the noble birthright, carry on, carry on, carry on!’ I testify that you are loved—and you are trusted—today, in 20 years, and forever. Don’t sell your birthright for a mess of pottage. Don’t trade everything for nothing. Don’t let the world change you when you were born to change the world.” We can all change the world for good as we hold fast to our covenant relationship with the Lord.