God is a great giver of gifts. They are timely, powerful, and personal. They teach us, help us feel loved, and change
our lives forever. But not all gifts are
created equal. There is one gift that
prophets have long said is greater than any other that we receive in
mortality. It is the gift of the Holy
Ghost. President Wilford Woodruff said
the following, "Now, if you
have the Holy Ghost with you—and every one ought to have—I can say unto you
that there is no greater gift, there is no greater blessing, there is no
greater testimony given to any man on earth. You may have the administration of
angels; you may see many miracles; you may see many wonders in the earth; but I
claim that the gift of the Holy Ghost is the greatest gift that can be bestowed
upon man."
The first time I heard of
this concept, I didn't quite accept it at face value. I immediately began thinking of other great
blessings that seemed even more powerful.
But when I chose to accept this idea to its full extent in faith, faith
that Wilford Woodruff was a prophet, and that he spoke for God, great power
came into my life.
In a talk about the Holy
Ghost, Elder Bednar counseled missionaries not to worry so much if a specific
prompting is from the Holy Ghost or not.
"Be a good boy, or a good girl," and you will be guided by the Spirit, whether you recognize it or not. Such confidence could only emerge from faith
in God, not in ourselves. It sometimes
matters a great deal if we are doing God's will as dictated by the Holy Ghost,
following our own judgment, or being deceived by a less-altruistic source. The faith that we have is that God is
powerful enough to help us do His will even though we are not 100% sure what it
is, that He is powerful enough to help us even though we do not consciously
discern that help. It is faith that as
we follow Him, we will arrive at the correct destination, not matter how
convoluted, surprising, or confusing the journey may be.
We can have the same
faith in God as we follow the prophets.
There are those who do not believe that we can trust every word that
comes from a prophet because he is mortal and makes mistakes. But people who believe that are not actually
lacking faith in prophets; they are lacking faith in God. When has God ever set up anything for the
benefit of His children that we can sometimes trust and sometimes not? Are there times when paying tithing does not
open the windows of heaven? No. One ironic thing about people who believe the
scriptures, but not all of the words of living prophets, is that the scriptures
were written by prophets identical to the ones speaking in General Conference. Ancient prophets had just as equal a
propensity to err as modern ones. Moroni
even
said, "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father,
because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but
rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections,
that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been" (Mormon 9:31). It's ludicrous to think that prophets have been perfectly guided by God for
thousands of years and then, in modern times, suddenly began to spout out
intermittent bursts of false doctrine.
As with the Holy Ghost,
our trust is not that prophets are perfect, now or in the scriptures. They are not.
But God the one being in the universe who can create something perfect
from something imperfect. Isn't that one
of the most fundamental truths of the Plan of Salvation? Isn't that exactly what he is doing with each one of us? To say that we cannot trust that a prophet
will never lead us astray is to lack faith in the omnipotence of God. In saying that, we
are also saying that God cannot use imperfect beings to guide us perfectly
while at the same time honoring their agency.
It all comes down to faith.
Christ said, "If any man will do his will, he shall know
of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself" (John
7:17). As I have followed the prophets'
council and have chosen to believe their words above my own understanding of
the Gospel, I have been blessed. My
explanation of things is not airtight, but the testimony of action is. I promise that if you follow the words of the
prophet as if from the mouth of God Himself, you will know that the doctrine I
have talked about today is true. In
fact, it is the only way you can know. For
this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, through
Jesus Christ, and those He hath sent.
"Ice Water" by Pink Sherbet Photography, no changes made, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode
"Icelandic landscape #20," by Alexander Shchukin, no changes made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode
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