Brothers and sisters, aloha!
A few of you may have heard of Arturo Toscanini. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, he was one of the most respected orchestra conductors of the early 20th century. He was known for having an extraordinary ear for music and eventually became the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held for nearly 20 years. He was also the producer for the orchestra’s weekly radio broadcasts, which were heard all over the world.
One day he received a short letter in the mail, written on a crumbled piece of brown paper. It was from a shepherd who lived alone in a remote mountain area in the state of Wyoming in the Western United States, with his sheep.
The letter said:
“Mr. Conductor: I have only two possessions in this world—a radio and an old violin. The batteries in my radio are getting low and will soon die. I have no way to replace them. My violin is so out of tune, I can’t use it. Please help me. Next Sunday when you begin your concert, could you please play a perfect ‘A’ so I can tune the ‘A’ string on my violin? Once the ‘A’ string is tuned, I will then be able to tune my other strings. That way, when my radio dies, I’ll at least be able to play my violin.”
At the beginning of his next nationwide radio concert from Carnegie Hall, a famous auditorium where some of our BYU–Hawaii students performed last year, Toscanini announced: “For a dear friend and listener in the mountains of Wyoming, the orchestra will now play a perfect ‘A.’” Then the musicians all joined together in sounding that one note. [1]
That lonely shepherd only needed that perfect ‘A’, just a little help to get his violin back in tune; he could go on from there.
As we all know too well, there are many voices that compete for our attention and our time—school, work, social life, media, church callings, and the constant noise of the world. Like that shepherd’s violin, it doesn’t take much for our lives to slip slightly out of tune. I pray that something I say today will help you get back in tune and ready to face the challenges ahead.
As you know, this devotional comes just two days after general conference and Easter Sunday—one of the most hopeful celebrations in all of Christianity that commemorates the most important event in all of human history. Two days from now, I will celebrate my birthday. That combination has given me a lot to think about.
Easter reminds us that Christ lives. Birthdays remind us that life keeps moving on. Just like the “A” note on that shepherd’s violin, Easter and my birthday together remind me that I need to keep my life in tune with what matters most, because like the batteries in that shepherd’s radio, I am increasingly aware with each birthday that my time is limited. I don’t know when my batteries will run out. None of us know how much time we have left. But I do know that I want to use my time wisely.
For me, part of that has meant taking advantage of the time, resources, and opportunities I’ve been given to explore this beautiful world. That’s one of the reasons I chose to work in the Hospitality & Tourism industry in the first place.
Last Saturday, I returned from visiting my 109th country. In all my travels around the world, I have seen incredible beauty and kindness. But I have also noticed something very concerning—an increase in disrespect, pollution, immorality, dishonesty, and crime. It seems that almost nothing is sacred in our world anymore—no person, no building, no relationship, no law. We live in a world that is increasingly out of tune.
I can’t help but wonder if the underlying cause of all this is the growing loss of spirituality that I also noticed worldwide. Think about it. When people forget who they are and why they are here, their respect for God, for others, and even for themselves begins to fade. Without a sense of self-worth, what need is there for self-respect, or respect for the people and things around us? It’s sad to me that so many people wander through life without direction. Sometimes, this even impacts members of the Church.
My wife and I spent the first four years of our marriage working with the youth in our local ward. These were good kids who came from good LDS homes. They were strong. They had to be. Many of them were the only members of the Church in their schools.
They knew well the basic beliefs of our religion. I could ask them any question about the Law of Tithing, the Word of Wisdom, God’s standards for morality and dating, Sabbath Day observance, the Law of the Fast, and more, and they knew the answers.
But when it came to discussing the core doctrines of the gospel—things like the Atonement, the Oath & Covenant of the Priesthood, salvation by grace, justification through Christ, and the Resurrection—they were much less confident. Some of their insecurity may have been due to their age and maturity level, but honestly, I find that these are topics few adults fully understand, myself included.
So, I began to realize something.
It is possible to know the standards of the Church and still not fully know the Savior.
It is possible to keep all the commandments and still live a life slightly out of tune.
We may know all the musical notes of the Savior’s gospel, but we haven’t yet learned how they come together in perfect harmony.
And that is why these core doctrines are so essential to understand.
All human beings—those who have lived, those who now live, and those who will yet live—face an incredibly challenging reality, and it comes from two simple but difficult truths.
The first truth is described in Doctrine and Covenants 1:31—“For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” [2]
While that may seem strict, the meaning is clear. God cannot tolerate sin to any degree. He can’t smile at it, He can’t ignore it, He can’t brush it under the carpet, He can’t look the other way, and He cannot make an exception, even once. God’s standard—the Celestial standard—is absolute. There are no exceptions.
Adam & Eve taught us this principle powerfully. In the Garden of Eden, they walked and talked with God. Then one transgression, one single act of disobedience by partaking of the forbidden fruit, and they were cast out of the Garden and cut off from God’s presence.
The second and equally difficult truth was taught by the Apostle Paul to the Romans in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” [3]
Yes, brothers and sisters, each of us fails to be perfect every day. Even the very best of us commit sin and fall short of God’s perfect standard. With Him there is no middle ground—you are either perfect or you are a sinner. That kind of puts us all in the same boat, doesn’t it? It doesn’t matter how badly we’ve sinned. If we’ve sinned once, we’re a sinner, and we find ourselves out of tune with God.
But the good news is, all is not lost.
The even better news of the gospel is that imperfect people can be brought back into the presence of a perfect God.
The solution to life’s great challenge is Jesus Christ—the perfect ‘A’.
Through His Atonement and Resurrection, what is out of tune can be brought back into harmony.
And that leads me to four simple yet important lessons I’ve learned about the Savior about tuning and harmony.
Lesson #1: The Savior Tunes What Is Out of Tune
Sometimes we think the Savior’s Atonement is for everyone else. I know several faithful Latter-day Saints who say, “I believe that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, but what I have done is so terrible that I don’t think the Atonement will work for me.” Others have told me, “I believe Christ can save me, but I just don’t think He will.” These thoughts, my young friends, come from Satan and are simply not true.
President Tad R. Callister, a former General Sunday School President who passed away just six months ago, taught that “Jesus Christ makes it possible for every person, of every age, at any point in their life, no matter how degraded or hopeless (things) may seem, to overcome every obstacle, every weakness, every sin, and every disappointment the world can (throw) at him or her. Whatever the ailment (or sickness), Christ (is the cure).” [4]
Do you remember Alma the Younger & the Sons of Mosiah from the Book of Mormon? Before their repentance, they were described in Mosiah 28:4 as the “vilest (or worst) of sinners.” [5] I don’t think you can have a title much more negative than that. And yet through repentance, the Savior was able to change them in miraculous ways. I bear my witness to you that if the Atonement can be applied to the worst of sinners, it can apply to you.
No string is so out of tune that it cannot be adjusted. Christ is the perfect “A.”
Lesson #2: Following the Savior Brings Harmony Through Alignment
Most of you are students, working toward a degree that you hope will help you be successful in life. But have you ever stopped to wonder what that means? What does it really mean to be successful?
In the Hospitality & Tourism industry, where I’ve spent much of my career, my clients and co-workers often equate success with money—the more money you have, the more successful you are—but I have learned that the material things we acquire in this life don’t bring lasting happiness, and they can’t be taken with us when we die. And the fact that we have more than someone else certainly doesn’t make us any better than they are. In reality, it puts us at risk of becoming arrogant and prideful—two character traits that are displeasing to the Lord.
Others define success by status, popularity, titles, and positions, sometimes even their grades and GPAs. But worldly honors fade away, and there will always be someone better and worse off than we are. Comparing ourselves to others will only make us jealous or proud—not successful.
Some feel successful because of their families. When all of their children are married in the temple, serve missions, and graduate college, they consider their lives a success. But even the greatest Father of all, our Heavenly Father, lost a third of His spirit children when they chose to follow Lucifer. Another great father, the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi, lost a third of his sons as well.
So, if success isn’t measured by money, status, our families, or other outcomes, what is it?
My wife and I have decided that, for us anyway, true success comes from aligning our will to the will of our Heavenly Father. Putting off the natural man, and trusting firmly in the Lord, is the only way to ensure that we fulfill the purposes for which He sent us here, and it’s by accomplishing those purposes that we find true success.
Just like that shepherd in the mountains of Wyoming, success begins with alignment. He had to listen carefully to the perfect “A” played by Toscanini’s orchestra and then adjust his own violin string until it matched that note. His violin didn’t become in tune by wishing or guessing or by comparing it to other violins—it became in tune by aligning with a perfect standard. In the same way, our lives come into harmony when we align our will to the will of our Heavenly Father.
This is not always easy, and I’m certainly not perfect at it. Even the Savior wrestled with this in the Garden of Gethsemane. Three times He asked the Father that the cup—or the painful weight of our sins—be removed from Him, yet He ultimately said, “Not my will, but thine, be done.” [6]
Sometimes harmony means letting go of something we want.
Sometimes it means accepting something we would never choose.
Sometimes it means trusting that the Father hears a note we cannot yet hear or sees things we cannot see.
For example, I may want a certain job because of the salary or the title, when the Lord wants me to work somewhere else to bless the life of someone I may not have even met yet. Some students may want to take the easy road after graduation, when the Lord is preparing them to return home and bless their nations and communities in ways they cannot yet see. Retired people may want to spend their time playing golf or visiting their grandkids when Heavenly Father needs them in the mission field.
We need to make certain that our own desires, no matter how good or admirable they may seem, don’t keep us from those things that are more important to the Lord. Just like a violin string must sometimes be tightened or loosened to reach the correct pitch, our hearts and our desires often need to be adjusted so our lives can come into harmony with God’s will.
Lesson #3: The Savior Amplifies Our Offerings
Did you know that there are only two events recorded by every writer of the four Gospels in the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke & John? The first one is the Resurrection, that we just celebrated. But interestingly, the second one is not Jesus’ birth nor is it his atonement. It’s the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
On the day of that event, Jesus was teaching a large crowd. As evening came, the disciples grew worried because the people had nothing to eat.
They searched among everyone in attendance and found only five loaves of bread and two small fish. The disciples wondered how they could possibly feed so many with so little.
But the Savior took what was offered. He blessed it. He distributed it. And they did all eat until they were filled.
When we place what little we have into the Savior’s hands, our talents, our efforts, our willingness to serve Him are amplified.
I have seen this firsthand in our HTM students from Kiribati. They had a strong desire to help lift their country from poverty, but they saw no opportunities back home and didn’t know how or where to begin. But they did not let their lack of understanding stop them. They brainstormed simple ideas, reached out to local leaders, requested meetings with government officials when they came to Hawaii, and saved their own money to travel back home where they engaged with community members. Their willingness to serve was placed in the Savior’s hands, and he multiplied their efforts beyond anything they could have imagined.
Since then, they have presented to their national parliament, were invited to a private reception with the president of their country, spoke at the United Nations, helped establish the first national park in all of Micronesia, influenced changes in national laws and public policy, began training programs that gave their countrymen hope and a secondary source of income, and even presented to international organizations like the World Bank that agreed to help fund their projects. Several of those students and I just returned from Kiribati last Saturday where they are partnering with the World Bank, the Kiribati government, and other community leaders as part of a $700M development initiative. What began as humble, uncertain steps became a national movement that changed the direction of their entire country and gave hope to their citizens for a better future—proof that the Lord can amplify our small offerings into something far greater when we let Him.
Now, one last point I’d like to make.
Lesson #4: The Savior Restores Harmony Through Forgiveness
In order to receive the blessing of forgiveness available to us through the Savior’s Atonement, we too must be willing to forgive. This eternal truth was driven home to me powerfully when I attended sacrament meeting in a ward near the Sacred Grove. It happened to be High Council Sunday, and at the beginning of his talk, the High Council speaker reminded the congregation that that weekend marked the anniversary of a terrible attack on Joseph Smith.
That cold night of March 24, 1832, a group of angry men broke through the door of the home where Joseph, his wife Emma, and their young children were staying. They pulled Joseph from his bed, dragged him outside by his feet, removed his clothing, choked him until he lost consciousness, then covered his body with hot pine tar—a thick, sticky black liquid used for protecting wood. They also tried to poison him and broke one of his teeth in the process.
Left for dead and barely able to see, Joseph managed to make his way back to the farmhouse where his wife Emma and their gracious hosts spent the night carefully removing the tar from Joseph’s beaten body.
The following day, a Sunday, Joseph rose to give a sermon. Several members of the mob who attacked him the night before attended that sermon, eager to see the damage they had done and laugh at Joseph’s suffering. [7]
But something remarkable happened. Several of those men in the mob were touched by Joseph’s testimony. Following the meeting, one of the men who had helped organize the attack, Edwin Duzett, approached Joseph and asked for his forgiveness. He also asked to be baptized.
Joseph would never fully recover from the injuries he received that night. And one of his infant twins would later die of a disease that he contracted during the attack. It would have been easy, even justifiable in the eyes of many, for Joseph to refuse his forgiveness. But instead, he freely forgave Edwin Duzett and he personally baptized him that afternoon.
Through tears, the High Council speaker then told us that he was a fifth-generation descendant (or in other words, the great-great-great-grandson) of Edwin Duzett, the man who had organized that attack on Joseph’s life. Joseph’s act of forgiveness changed the destiny of an entire family. And it brought the blessings of the gospel to countless generations.
Think of what might have happened to that family, and to that High Councilman, if Joseph had chosen not to forgive. That is what a heart in tune with Christ looks like. That is harmony restored.
As I’ve shared these four lessons with you, I hope you’ve noticed how they all relate to tuning. Just as the lonely shepherd needed a perfect “A” to begin bringing his violin back into harmony, we too can begin to align our will with Heavenly Father’s by implementing these four simple lessons.
And so, my invitation to you today is this: choose one small, actionable step you can take this week to get more in tune with the Lord. Pray with humility. Forgive someone. Open the scriptures. Serve quietly. Attend the temple. If you do, like the shepherd who heard a single note and was then able to tune his entire violin, the rest will begin to come into place. You will end this semester with a perfect “A.”
I bear my testimony that Jesus Christ lives and that His Atonement is real. As we align our will with our Heavenly Father’s, our lives will resonate with beautiful harmony and purpose, and we will become the men and women we were sent here to become—in tune, aligned, forgiven, and forgiving, and most importantly, amplified.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes:
[1] David B. Haight, “People to People,” Ensign, October 1981, 54
[2] Doctrine and Covenants 1:31
[3] Romans 3:23
[4] Tad R. Callister, The Blueprint of Christ's Church [2015], 109
[5] Mosiah 28:4
[6] Luke 22:42
[7] The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1: March 1832, 261-264