Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence Marching
Orders
Dear Elders and Sisters:
It was a wonderful week to be able to be with you in Zone
Conference and I believe it was the best one yet! I hope you do as well. I felt the Assistants' teaching and instruction
on serving in your areas "As for Years" was very well done and their
instruction on Master Finders will be a blessing to each of you. Also, I want to thank Elders Speer and Rector
(and Conner) and Sister Mills for their wonderful instruction that reminded us
"It is all in the Attitude!" And please do not forget what Sister
Clark taught you so clearly about "An Attitude of Gratitude". I trust you went away from Zone Conference
changed rather than just entertained!
You prepared for Zone Conference by studying "Cast
Not Away Therefore Your Confidence" and as I was studying it again a few
of its teachings jumped off the page at me as though they are our
"Marching Orders". So, in an
inspired manner I trust, here are your Marching Orders from Zone Conference!
First of all remember that "plain and very sobering
truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments,
there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness (consider Joseph Smith's
account of the First Vision). So, don’t
let your guard down. Don’t assume that a great revelation, some marvelous
illuminating moment, or the opening of an inspired path is the end of it.
Remember, it isn’t over until it’s over. We've set forward with the Wards and
Stakes to Baptize 1,000 - a goal that was made under inspiration by Ward and
Branch Councils and Stake Presidencies.
So in encouragement to you regarding opposition that so often comes
after enlightened decisions have been made, after moments of revelation and
conviction have given us peace and an assurance we thought we would never lose,
don't let your guard down and certainly don't pull the "Children of Israel
Move" and desire to go back. An inspired goal of 1,000 baptisms has been
set and the Lord will prepare a way for us to "cross this Red
Sea!"
The reminder is that we cannot sign on for a moment of
such eternal significance and everlasting consequence without knowing it will
be a fight—a good fight and a winning fight, but a fight nevertheless. And now
to point to the title - "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which
hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye
have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. . . .If any man draw
back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. . . .We are not of them who draw
back unto perdition." [Hebrews 10:35–36, 38–39; Paul said, but don’t “draw
back,” he warned. Don’t panic and retreat. Don’t lose your confidence. Don’t
forget how you once felt. Don’t distrust the experience you had. That tenacity
is what saved Moses when the adversary confronted him, and it is what will save
you. Certainly don’t give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of
your happiness. He wants everyone to be miserable like unto himself. Face your
doubts. Master your fears. “Cast not away therefore your confidence!”
Second: From this
great talk of Elder Holland's we learn that "revelation almost always
comes in response to a question, usually an urgent question—not always, but
usually. In that sense it does provide information, but it is urgently needed
information, special information. Moses’ challenge was how to get himself and
the children of Israel out of this horrible predicament they were in. There
were chariots behind them, sand dunes on every side, and just a lot of water
immediately ahead. He needed information all right—what to do—but it wasn’t a
casual thing he was asking. In this case it was literally a matter of life and
death."
And you will need information too such as where to go to
Find, what to teach or even who to teach and who will be those that will help
you achieve the Power of One? As Elder
Holland taught: "…in matters of great consequence it is not likely to come
unless you want it urgently, faithfully, humbly. Moroni calls it seeking “with real
intent” (Moroni 10:4). If you can seek that way, and stay in that mode, not
much that the adversary can counter with will dissuade you from a righteous
path. You can hang on, whatever the assault and affliction, because you have
paid the price to—figuratively, at least—see the face of God and live. Like
Moses in his vision, there may come after the fact some competing doubts and
some confusion, but they will pale when you measure them against the real
thing. Remember the real thing. Remember how urgently you have needed help in
earlier times and that you got it. The 'Red Sea of 1,000 baptisms' will open to
the honest seeker of revelation. The adversary does have power to hedge up the
way, to marshal Pharaoh’s forces and dog our escape right to the water’s edge,
but he can’t produce the real thing. He cannot conquer if we will it otherwise.
“Exerting all [our] powers to call upon God,” the light will again come, the
darkness will again retreat, the safety will again be sure. That is lesson
number one about crossing the Red Sea, your Red Seas, by the spirit of
revelation."
"Lesson number two is closely related to it. It is
that in the process of revelation and in making important decisions, fear
almost always plays a destructive, sometimes paralyzing role. To Oliver
Cowdery, who missed the opportunity of a lifetime because he didn’t seize it in
the lifetime of the opportunity, the Lord said, “You did not continue as you
commenced.” Does that sound familiar to those who have been illuminated and
then knuckled under to second thoughts and returning doubts? “It is not
expedient that you should translate now,” the Lord said in language that
must have been very hard for Oliver to hear. “Behold, it
was expedient when you commenced; but you feared, and the time is past, and it
is not expedient now” (D&C 9:5, 10–11). And I promise each of you that
baptizing 1,000 in back to back years in the great CFM is an opportunity of
your lifetime!
As F. Scott Fitzgerald taught: "Trouble has no
necessary connection with discouragement - discouragement has a germ of its
own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff
joint." Troubles and challenges we all have but the germ of discouragement
is not in the trouble. "It is in
us. Or to be more precise, I believe it
is in Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Father of Lies. And he would have it in us. Of course our faith will be tested as we
fight through these self-doubts and second thoughts. Some days we will be
miraculously led out of Egypt — seemingly free, seemingly on our way—only to
come to yet another confrontation, like all that water lying before us. At
those times we must resist the temptation to panic and to give up. At those
times fear will be the strongest of the adversary’s weapons against us. 'And
Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of
the Lord. . . . The Lord shall fight for you.'”
So again, don't pull the "Children of Israel
Move" who actually said to Moses: "wherefore has thou dealt with us,
to carry us forth out of Egypt? It had
been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the
wilderness." And I love the
response and it is the Lord's response to us: "And the Lord said unto
Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me?
Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." That is
the second lesson of the spirit of revelation. After you have gotten the
message, after you have paid the price to feel his love and hear the word of
the Lord, “go forward.” Don’t fear, don’t vacillate, don’t quibble, don’t
whine. You may, like Alma going to Ammonihah, have to find a route that leads
an unusual way, but that is exactly what the Lord was doing here for the
children of Israel. Nobody had ever crossed the Red Sea this way, but so what?
There’s always a first time. With the spirit of revelation, dismiss your fears
and wade in with both feet.
And lastly: "The third lesson from the Lord’s spirit
of revelation in the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea is that, along with
the illuminating revelation that points us toward a righteous purpose or duty,
God will also provide the means and power to achieve that purpose. Trust in
that eternal truth. If God has told you something is right, if something is
indeed true for you, he will provide the way for you to accomplish it. That is
true of joining the Church. It is true of getting an education, of going on a
mission or of getting married or of any of a hundred worthy tasks in your young
lives [especially and particularly baptizing 1,000 people in the great CFM this
year and achieving the Power of One each and every month!].
In the words of Joseph Smith, “[Elders, and Sisters],
shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage,
[Elders and Sisters]; and on, on to the victory!” (D&C 28:22).
Sister Clark and I send our undying love and devotion to
each of you. We are cheering, rooting,
praying, and always thinking and talking of you.
Love,
President
Clark
