He Is the Way

Yesterday President Dallin H. Oaks gave a BYU devotional address, his first as the president of the Church. I was impressed by the fact that though the devotional began at 11:00, “Students began lining up at 4 a.m. By 9:30 a.m., the line stretched from the Marriott Center up to the Harman Conference Center and out to University Parkway by the Missionary Training Center. The doors closed at 10 a.m.” That is a testament to the students’ faith that President Oaks is indeed a prophet of the Lord. And as a witness of Jesus Christ, it is not surprising that he invited us to draw closer to the Savior and to increase our faith in Him in order to overcome the doubts we have. He said, “Whatever those doubts, the way to overcome them is to get closer to our Savior Jesus Christ. Again and again, He has taught us that He is the way.” His first suggestion was what we call the first principle of the gospel: have faith in Jesus Christ: “Strong faith requires more than strong desire,” he said. “It means daily trying, one step at a time, with prayer and scripture study. We can increase our commitment to the principles in the First Article of Faith…. These principles anchor our faith in God and will keep us anchored to gospel truth and to our Savior’s example of service to our fellowmen.” For those hoping “to hear some new thing” from him were likely disappointed because he focused on what is most important: helping us draw closer to the Savior and strengthening faith in Him (Acts 17:21). President Oaks did not pretend to have some new, brilliant way to be successful from his own wisdom, but his humble counsel was what prophets always invite us to do: come unto the Savior who declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

               It is also a sign of humility that in his talk President Oaks would quote three previous presidents of the Church. He spoke of President Kimball’s vision for the 2^nd century at BYU, he reminded us of President Benson’s words about pride, and he also quoted President Nelson’s teaching about our need for the Holy Ghost: “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” President Oaks added this to that statement: “I feel to emphasize [this] warning. You live in a season where the adversary has become so effective at disguising truth that if you don’t have the Holy Ghost, you will be deceived. Many obstacles lie ahead. The distractions will be many.” Those are sobering words from a prophet—obstacles are in our future and we will easily become distracted from what matters most if we do not learn to hear the voice of the Spirit. His comment about future distractions reminds me of what President Faust prophesied in 1993: “In your generation you will be barraged by multitudes of voices telling you how to live, how to gratify your passions, how to have it all. You will have up to five hundred television channels at your fingertips. There will be all sorts of software, interactive computer modems, databases, and bulletin boards; there will be desktop publishing, satellite receivers, and communications networks that will suffocate you with information…. You will be bombarded with evil and wickedness like no other generation.” We are indeed suffocated with information, and President Oaks’ and President Faust’s message is that we need the Holy Ghost to help us amidst all these distractions. As Oliver Cowdery put it, the world is “racked and distracted” and “groping as the blind for the wall.” But our focus must be on drawing closer to the Savior and hearing His voice through the Holy Ghost. These powerful words of the apostle Paul (which President Faust referenced) perhaps sum up best what the prophets past and present desire for each of us: “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;  And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19). As the students sang with great fervor at this devotional, “We thank thee, O God, for a prophet to guide us in these latter days…. When dark clouds of trouble hang o’er us And threaten our peace to destroy, There is hope smiling brightly before us, And we know that deliv’rance is nigh. We doubt not the Lord nor his goodness. We’ve proved him in days that are past.” I am grateful for a living prophet to guide us and point us to the Lord and His goodness who will help us in the future as He has in the past.