Brothers and Sisters, Aloha!
Sister Richardson is one of the world's great people. At present, she is entirely involved in nurturing our children, and she's doing a wonderful job at it. Her work involves lots of lively challenges, but it's clear to me that that work is growing in strength and power and influence every day, and every indication is that it will continue along those lines forever. I love and admire her, and I am greatly blessed that she is my companion.
The first four months of this year were important ones for our family. In January, Samuel James Richardson, our eighth child, arrived. In April, Sarah Richardson, our first child, was married. I'd like to introduce my topic, "Trust in the Lord," with a few comments about the two of them.
When Samuel joined us in January, he was healthy in every way except one: There was something a little unusual about his skin in some places. As the first hours went by, the outer layer of skin started to come off in some areas, mostly on his legs, arms, and back. This left weeping wounds that looked something like scrapes or burns. Doctors and nurses seemed very puzzled by it. Finally, perhaps 18 hours after our baby's arrival, a doctor informed us that she thought he had a rare and serious skin condition that can profoundly affect the quality one's life. Her explanation seemed reasonable, and squared with what I was able to locate on the internet. This was certainly sobering for us. We prayed, and Samuel received a priesthood blessing.
That night, and over several days of intensive care for Samuel, a scripture from Proverbs with which you are all familiar persistently came into my thoughts: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6). Sister Richardson similarly had a scripture come to her mind-hers from the Doctrine and Covenants-with the essential words being: "Be not troubled" (D&C 45:35). Since that night we have tried to think and act in accord with those persistent impressions. This has brought us comfort and peace. The doctors involved, after a significant amount of testing, still do not know the exact nature of Samuel's skin condition, but it is clearly improving. A specialist has informed us that he does not have the serious condition that had seemed so logical and likely early on. In other words, to have leaned unto our own understanding back then would have been to lean unto inaccuracy, and would have done no good. All indications at present are that Samuel's problem will resolve itself entirely.
What I wish to emphasize here is that the scriptures encouraging us to trust in the Lord and to be not troubled have power in them. We have realized that they were the right spiritual promptings for us if Samuel's outcome is positive, as it seems it will be, and that they were also right for us if his outcome turns out to be just as serious as the original diagnosis suggested. In either case, trust in the Lord brings us comfort and peace.
One other thing about Samuel: He has a soft, open smile and a look in his eyes that have brought tears to his Dad's eyes more than once. I'm so grateful for him, as I am for each of our other children.
Sarah, the oldest of our children, is busy working on a degree at BYU-Provo. She was married one month ago in the Manti Temple, just a little over 20 years after her birth in Mainland China.
Shortly after Sister Richardson and I were married, we were given a chance, through BYU- Provo, to teach English for a year at a university in Xi'an, in central China. We had both been studying Chinese and felt that this was something we should do. At the same time, however, we wanted to welcome into our family any children the Lord might be willing to send us. We figured that if we committed for the year and went to China there was a very good possibility that we might end up having our first baby there. We studied things out, prayed, and felt to trust that things would work out if we went ahead with the trip.
After our arrival in China, it became apparent at some point that Sister Richardson was expecting. After considering our options, we made arrangements to have the baby in the Fourth Military Hospital in Xi'an. But when the time came to go to the hospital, which was about 30 minutes away through city traffic, Sister Richardson could tell that there would not be enough time to get there. We had tried to prepare ourselves, just in case, by reading and studying a lot about birth, but in the end it was good that the driver from the university knew where to find two midwives who arrived just as I was about to have to prove that I had actually learned something. Through the blessings of our Heavenly Father, Sarah was born healthily and well in our bedroom on the campus of Xi'an Foreign Languages University.
The details of the story are pretty exciting, but what I would like to emphasize here is Sister Richardson's trust in the Lord. It was a trust that allowed her to meet a new and challenging set of circumstances with both courage and grace. There is a very real sense in which a wonderful daughter and a whole host of great memories in China are Sister Richardson's reward for that trust.
Brothers and sisters, my hope today is to encourage us all to exercise a little more trust in the Lord- even if what we desperately wish for is not granted when we want it, or granted at all in this life. Difficulties- large and small- are going to come to all of us in one way or another. They are part of our loving Father's plan to "prove [us], to see if [we] will do all things whatsoever the Lord [our] God shall command [us]" (Abr. 3:25). One thing He has asked us to do is to trust Him when difficulties present themselves, as the scriptures and the words of the prophets clearly show. Today I will explore this topic with a few thoughts that I've organized around several small stories about our other children.
Most of you are familiar with Peter Pan. For those who aren't, he is a fictional character, a mischievous boy who can fly and who magically never grows up. We see him in books, plays, movies, and so forth. In any case, I used to have a church assignment in the BYUH 14th Ward, in the 2nd Stake. One day I came home from some 14th-Ward meetings and my daughter, Abigail, who was five years old at the time, rushed up and said very excitedly that Peter Pan had called our house and left a message. I thought about that for a moment and realized that it had to have been the person who was the stake executive secretary at the time, Dr. Peter Chan.
Abigail is now nine years old, and knows the difference between Peter Chan and Peter Pan, but the rest of us may sometimes misidentify the one who's calling us with regard to deeper matters. The Lord does call on us to exert ourselves, to work, but it is not the Lord who calls us to fear and worry and fret. He who calls or entices us to do these things has a different name.
The scriptures contain cautions about becoming entangled in and choked by the "cares of this world," and are filled with encouragement to trust in the Lord and enjoy the fruit that such trust brings. We are counseled not to doubt nor fear (D&C 6:36), but to believe, as we heard from Brother Schade last week, and to be assured that "blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Ps. 2:12). We read that "none that trust in him shall be desolate" (Ps. 34:22); that "whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he" (Proverbs 16:20); that "whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe" (Proverbs 29:25); that "the Lord . . . knoweth them that trust him" (Nahum 1:7); that "the Lord . . . [extends] the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him" (Mosiah 29:20); that "whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 36:3). The scriptures are insistent and persuasive about the good fruit born of trust in the Lord.
Elder Bruce D. Porter once said that he had learned a great deal from Elder Charles Didier, under whom Elder Porter had served in the Europe East Area Presidency. Elder Porter mentioned an occasion when a number of problems posed grave challenges to the work in Europe: political troubles all across the area; serious difficulties with the government in Bulgaria; unrest in Albania; problems in Russia and Ukraine, and so forth. Elder Porter then commented that whenever such problems came up, "Elder Didier would never panic. He would never say the situation is grim. He would never send off a letter to the First Presidency and tell them that we needed help. Elder Didier simply would smile and say, 'The Lord will take care of it,' and he did again and again and again." Elder Porter added: "Now, I am not saying there will never be setbacks, because there will be, or that we will not occasionally have to leave a country for a time, but what I am saying is that the Lord has all these things in his hands. We need not fear. We need not panic. This is his work" ("Family and the Global Church: Cultural and Political Challenges," in The International Society 9th Conference, 17 August 1998, pp. 3-4).
Some of us may find it easier to trust that the Lord will facilitate the larger work of His kingdom as it moves forward than to trust that He will help us individually in the details of our lives. I believe that this is a mistake. The Lord's work and purposes advance on many levels, and the importance of trust in Him for help in our individual efforts cannot be discounted.
Brigham Young communicated this idea when he explained what he called a "great secret." He said the secret was that he never worried about anything. He counseled others to do the same in these words: "Never worry about anything; but have the Spirit of the Lord so as to know what to do, and when you have done or counseled right never fret about the result. It is in the hands of the Lord, and He will work out the problem, and you need not be at all afraid of the matter. And this is true of all the acts of the children of men" (JD 13, p. 308).
Knowledgeable non-LDS believers have given us insightful perspectives along the same lines. C. S. Lewis, for example, said that "[Christian society] is to be a cheerful society, full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong." He suggested that we "[stand] back from all [our] natural fussings and frettings, [and come] in out of the wind [to a] sort of new life [in the Lord]" (Mere Christianity, Macmillan Paperbacks Edition, New York: 1978, pp. 80, 168-9). William James, whose work I especially enjoy reading, said: "Worry means always and invariably inhibition of associations and loss of effective power. Of course, the sovereign cure for worry is religious faith; and this, of course, you also know. The turbulent billows of the fretful surface leave the deep parts of the ocean undisturbed, and to him who has a hold on vaster and more permanent realities the hourly vicissitudes of his personal destiny seem relatively insignificant things. The really religious person is accordingly unshakable and full of equanimity, and calmly ready for any duty that the day may bring forth" (Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals, Henry Holt and Co., New York: 1922, p. 224).
Earlier this year, our six-year-old daughter, Susanna, came in after playing in her first basketball game ever in the local children's league at Laie Park.
I hadn't been able to go to her game, but when she came in I said, "Hi! How was your game?"
Susanna said: "Fine. I made a shot!"
I said, "You did?"
She said, "Yes. I made a shot before the game, and one of my friends made a shot in the game."
I said, "Great! Did your team win?"
She said, " I don't know."
I love the fact that Susanna did not know or care about who won the game, probably because I think there are persuasive gospel reasons for us to be less competitive than we sometimes are. In any case, this little episode reminded me of how different people can be in terms of how they see things and what they care about.
More importantly, according to Joseph Smith, "God . . . does not view things as we do" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Deseret Book, Salt Lake City: 1974, p. 356). As we read in Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord" (Isa. 55:8). Yet the Lord has been very clear that He wants us to follow Him, to learn of Him, to move toward His higher thoughts and ways.
This idea brings to mind a short comment by Tom Wilson, who said: "Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself" (Universal Press Syndicate, in Reader's Digest, April 1995, p. 34). Brothers and sisters, we cannot afford to have age just show up all by itself! The Lord has told us what we need to do to learn of Him. In the words of the scripture, we each must "[yield] to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, [put] off the natural man" - I think this probably includes the natural man's tendency to worry and fear - "and [become] a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and [become] as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19). In a very real sense, elevation of thought and humility of heart seem to go hand in hand, and neither is meaningfully possible without trust in the Lord.
Another thought comes to mind in connection with the fact that we do not worry about or fear what we do not consider to be important. I think most of us don't worry about drinking from a green glass as opposed to a blue glass, or any other color, for example. It's not important. Here is the point: Truly trusting the Lord has the power to move many other matters that we do tend to worry about or fear into the essentially unimportant category by grounding us in the "vaster and more permanent realities" mentioned by William James. In the words of Hugh Nibley, "What is a fortune, or even a few more years of life, or a good harvest, compared with the awareness of the love and power of the giver? If the giver loves me, I can leave the selection of gifts up to Him" (Approaching Zion, Deseret Book and FARMS, Salt Lake City: 1989, p. 109).
Our son Jacob was helping me with some gardening one day nearly five years ago, when he was eight years old. He said: "When I'm a Dad, one thing's going to be so hard. I'm really worried about it. You have to think up so many rules!" (Where do you suppose he got that idea?) Jacob is conscientious. He said he thought he might start to try and think of some and put them on a chart.
We know that the rules or commandments our Heavenly Father has given us are for our good. We also know that there is a close relationship between obedience to commandments and trust in the Lord who gave those commandments to us. Elder Clark, when he was here at BYU-Hawaii in February, spoke to this point when he said: "Obedience [is] both the foundation of trust and its most important evidence." He also offered some counsel in these words: "Now here's something practical to help you secure and sustain the faith and trust you need: Always keep the commandments of God-no matter what... If you do, your trust in God will grow; his power will be manifest in your life" We Are as the Army of Helaman," BYUH Devotional, 28 February 2008.
The effect of such an increase in trust and faith is not just improvement in the quality of our lives, but also improvement in the quality of the help we can bring to other lives. An example can be found in prayer. Do you have anyone outside yourself that you pray for- anyone that you pray for with great earnestness? If you don't now, surely you will. It's important to realize that the faith and trust we are able to exercise on behalf of those we pray for is very much affected by our obedience and righteousness. If we really love for those we pray for, if we truly want the Lord to help them, we have a powerful motive to be more obedient.
Our son Isaac is four years old, and he's a wonderful, lively boy. He had seen me feed the fish in our aquarium a number of times and one day decided to feed them on his own. He tossed in a nice paperback book for starters, one of his T-shirts, and several trophies the other kids had received for playing in the local basketball league. In an entirely separate incident, he must have decided it was hardly fair for the fish to have all that water when he was thirsty, because he took a big drink out of the fish tank before Sister Richardson rescued both him and the fish.
We all have access to things we shouldn't eat and to things we shouldn't drink, and I'm not talking about food or beverages. The menu of choices around us includes many that are unworthy and damaging. Our trust in the Lord and determination to be obedient will help us avoid these harmful possibilities, but again, we will not be the only ones who benefit. Elder Dean L. Larsen explained this in what I believe to be an important statement. He said:
"If we do not live in obedience to the gospel, then we betray the trust that has been placed in us. It is not enough to be concerned about the welfare of our own souls. We must be obedient for the sake of those millions of people who are looking for a refuge. The more we look, and act, and think like the world, the more difficult we make it for honest people to recognize the advantages of following the Lord's way. Whenever we cheat or lie or compromise our virtue to any degree, we fail in our trust. Whenever we make ourselves like the disobedient of the world in our appearance, in our fashions, in our music, in our talk, we fail in our trust. We become as salt that has lost its savor and is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out" " (Free to Act, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City: 1989, p. 125).
When Elder Larsen said "we fail in our trust," he meant that we fail in terms of the Lord's trust in us, which is the reverse of the topic of my talk today, but it's also true that if we are disobedient we fail in terms of our trust in the Lord. Trust and obedience go hand in hand.
One more brief thought, and then another story. The Lord is the Lord; none of us here doubts that. But it's also true that there is a sense in which we don't make Him our personal Lord until we obey Him. After all, it is in thoughts and actions that our true allegiance is revealed.
We left Texas to move to Utah in 1995. My mother had flown to Texas to help us pack and make the drive. Sister Richardson had very recently given birth to Jacob, who is now almost 13, and had to rest and take care of the new baby while my mother and I did our best to get everything in order. Nathan, who is now 16 years old, but was three-and-a-half back then, went in to Sister Richardson and said:
"Mommy, are you feeling a little left out?"
Sister Richardson said, "Yes."
Nathan said, "I'll be right here by you."
I'd like to make three brief points. The first: We each make a commitment to stay "right by" or stay close to the Lord when we covenant each week to always remember Him in sacrament meeting. One of the ways in which we can keep this promise is to "cast [our] burdens on the Lord and trust his constant care," as suggested in one of our hymns. In another verse of the hymn we sing, "I'll drop my burden at his feet, and bear a song away" ("How Gentle God's Commands," Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985, #125).
I know from personal experience that when I have truly placed a burden of worry or fear at His feet and trusted Him with it, I have felt closer to Him and have been comforted. I've also found-perhaps you have too-that there can be a strong temptation to mentally snatch the burden back and carry it again, as if we feel that we're actually on our own and that worry is somehow useful. Such an insistence on being "without God in the world" (Eph.2:12) is not wise. When we drop our burdens at His feet, let's leave them at His feet.
The second point: Our trust and commitment to stay close to the Lord will undoubtedly be tested. This is illustrated in a favorite biblical story as told by Elder Dennis Simmons: "Centuries ago, Daniel and his young associates were suddenly thrust from security into the world-a world foreign and intimidating. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down and worship a golden image set up by the king, a furious Nebuchadnezzar told them that if they would not worship as commanded, they would immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. 'And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?'
The three young men... responded, 'If it be so [if you cast us into the furnace], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand.'... They continued, 'But if not,...we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.'" (Ensign, May 2004, p. 73). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego trusted the Lord to save them, but admitting the possibility that He might not choose to do so, they were still determined to be faithful to Him.
Elder Maxwell has commented: "There will be times in each of our lives when our faith must not be conditioned upon God's rescuing or relieving us, because in fact He may not-at least, not as we would choose to be rescued. . . . Whether the test is illness, pain, deprivation, or being passed over, being ignored, being underwhelmed, or working one's way through doubts, what are to be sustained are trust and faith in God and in His plan-including His timing" ("Not My Will But Thine," Bookcraft, Salt Lake City: 1992, pp. 120, 123).
What we can be sure of is that if we stay close to the Lord and "do all we can do, we will, in His time and in His way, be delivered and receive all that He has," as Elder Simmons has testified.
The third point begins with a question: If we're not staying close to the Lord, not really putting our trust in Him, in whom or in what are we trusting? In an important Ensign article from the year 1976, President Kimball explained the following:
"Few men have ever knowingly and deliberately chosen to reject God and his blessings. Rather, we learn from the scriptures that because the exercise of faith has always appeared to be more difficult than relying on things more immediately at hand, carnal man has tended to transfer his trust in God to material things. Therefore, in all ages when men have fallen under the power of Satan and lost the faith, they have put in its place a hope in the "arm of flesh" and in "gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know" (Dan. 5:23)-that is, in idols. This I find to be a dominant theme in the Old Testament. Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; and if his god doesn't also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, that man is laboring in idolatry. It is my firm belief that when we read these scriptures and try to "liken them unto [our]selves," as Nephi suggested (1 Ne. 19:24), we will see many parallels between the ancient worship of graven images and behavioral patterns in our very own experience" ("The False Gods We Worship," Ensign, June 1976, p. 3).
President Kimball said much, much more in his thought-provoking message, which I highly recommend to you. Although we as members of the Church would prefer to be beyond the need for such a message, President Kimball made it clear that we too can be drawn in by the temptation to put our trust in false gods. May we be sensitive to this possibility in our own lives and resolve to stay close to the one God who is worthy of our trust.
This brings me to my last story. Our boy Seth, who was a little over three-and-a-half years old at the time, woke me up at 3:30 one morning. He just seemed to want to talk. I stretched out on the foot of the large bed that he and his brother slept on and we talked. We talked for over an hour. At some point in the conversation I decided I needed to write down some of what he was saying, and went to our library for a pencil and paper. Here are just some of the questions and comments Seth wanted to communicate about that morning:
"Dad, why are we in the world?
Dad, I don't want you to die.
When I'm 55 I'll be a grandpa.
I have a green schoolbook; I'm lucky.
I love you, Dad.
Dad, do all diapers have problems?
When will Jacob die (Jacob is his younger brother)?
What are you thinking of?
All old people die.
What are you writing?"
Somehow, along with green schoolbooks and diapers, Seth was thinking about some of life's central questions and most important truths at less than four years of age.
As I'm sure I discussed with him in simple terms that night, we are only here because-to paraphrase King Benjamin's words-God created us. . . and is preserving us from day to day, by lending us breath, that we may live and move and do according to our own will, and even supporting us from one moment to another (Mosiah 2:21). We are dependent upon Him for all that we have, and we are utterly dependent on Him for any long-term hope that we cherish.
Seth was concerned about death, but I think we adults don't worry much about it because of the trust we have that the Lord has conquered it. We have a conviction that we will all be quickened; that we will all be immortal.
I pray that as we trust the Lord in the truly great matters, like death, we will learn to trust Him in the smaller but challenging concerns of our daily lives. My testimony is that He is trustworthy, and my conviction is that trusting in Him brings assurance and peace. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.