How to Follow Your Heavenly GPS

It is so great to be back on campus with all of you! I hope you enjoyed your holiday—free of stress, studying, tests, making your bed, and cooking. Hopefully, now that you are back, your moms are enjoying a peaceful recovery.

Whether you spent the holidays near or far, I trust you found your way back to campus without too much trouble. I’m hoping nobody took a wrong turn in Albuquerque—because, well, I once did. And it was no fun. Let me explain.

When our children were young, we lived in New Mexico while Shane worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. My daughters were little, and I had my hands full at home, so one day Shane suggested that we meet by his work for a picnic lunch and a little fun. Before he left for work that day, Shane made sure to remind me of the directions and the name of the street where we would find him.

I’ll pause this story to remind you that it wasn’t all that long ago that cell phones were just phones and we didn’t carry Google Maps in our pockets everywhere we went. On top of that, Shane was not allowed to have a phone with him in the lab for security reasons, so I wouldn’t be able to call him even if I needed to.

Well, the time came for us to leave. I got my two little ones packed into the car, and we set off. I got to where I thought I was going pretty easily. But then came trouble. I was right where I believed I should be, but the road I was looking for just wasn’t there! Shane had told me the lab was on “Haymus Road,” and I couldn’t see a Haymus Road anywhere.

I kept driving around and around and around and around, and with each circle I got more and more frustrated. I thought, “Shane has worked here for how long, and he doesn’t even know what the street is called?!”

To be honest, I was mad. I couldn’t communicate with Shane. I couldn’t find the street. I was ready to turn the car around and go back home. Then, miraculously, I got a call from Shane. He had left the lab and had been able to find a phone to use. He seemed a little frustrated that I hadn’t shown up 20 minutes earlier.

I told him I had followed his instructions exactly and vented about endlessly winding up on some street I pronounced as “Gemez” (spelled J-e-m-e-z).

Shane paused. “Wendy,” he said, “it’s Spanish. That was the street.”

I had been in the right place the whole time, but the H I was certain I was looking for on the street sign was really just a Spanish J. Jemez Road— ”Haymus Road,” as the locals say it—is named after the nearby Jemez Mountains. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but, unlike Shane, I had even taken Spanish classes. At BYU!

Follow Heaven’s Directions

But perhaps there’s more to learn from my mishap than a sudden lapse in my foreign language abilities.

Because of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, we know that our being on this earth is no accident. We chose to come here. This mortal life is a time to prepare ourselves to live with our heavenly parents again.¹ We do that by following the Savior’s example, relying on Christ’s Atonement, and making sacred covenants with God.

That’s a pretty clear road map, and we are blessed to have so many restored truths and modern revelations to guide us along our covenant path. But I’m sure you’ve found out by now that—unfortunately—you can’t just open your scriptures and find the exact name of the person you should marry or the career path you should choose or how to prepare to serve a mission.

You are right in the thick of what Elder Robert D. Hales once called the “Decade of Decision.”² You have a lot of choices in front of you—choices that can and will shape the contours of your lives.

That can sound overwhelming, and I think if we aren’t careful in how we talk about these types of decisions, it’s tempting to get caught in a sort of decision paralysis. This isn’t helpful, and it’s certainly not the way Heavenly Father would want us to move forward with the choices in our lives.

Let me share three ways we can better identify the directions from heaven to help guide us to the destinations God has prepared for us. Think of these as your heavenly GPS.

Trust in the Plan

First, trust in the plan. Trust that when you’re striving to follow the Savior and living your covenants, you are right where you’re supposed to be. When I was trying to meet Shane for lunch, my first misstep was to doubt the plan. I couldn’t see the street I thought I needed to be on, even though I had followed the directions. My impulse was to think Shane was wrong and to doubt the plan. However, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has counseled us to “first doubt [our] doubts” before abandoning our faith in God’s perfect plan.³

Dear students, you are part of God’s plan. You are His children—each of you. He knows you, and His ultimate purpose—His work and His glory—is to bring to pass your immortality and your eternal life.⁴ Trust Him.

And when you start to feel lost, discouraged, or even frustrated, please remember these motivating words from our beloved President Jeffrey R. Holland: “Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever.”⁵

We are here on this earth to “have joy.”⁶ God’s plan is a plan of happiness. Trust in His plan.

Trust in Prayer

The second component of our heavenly GPS is prayer.

My picnic ordeal really boiled down to a communication mix-up. I couldn’t reach Shane by phone. My head was stuck in one language, and I couldn’t recognize another.

Prayer helps us hear God more clearly. If we are too absorbed in our own desires and in our own timelines, we won’t be ready to hear the language of heaven—a language we must understand to make sense of the needed decisions in front of us.

I love the way that the prophet Gordon B. Hinckley characterized a common pitfall in our efforts to pray: “The trouble with most of our prayers is that we give them as if we were picking up the telephone and ordering groceries—we place our order and hang up.”⁷

Prayer shouldn’t be a one-sided conversation. It should be a time of contemplation, reflection, and listening. It is, as one hymn says, a time to “unite [our souls] with heav’n”⁸ and to converse with God. When the Savior prayed, He gave thanks to God, glorified Him, and aligned His desires with the Father’s. His refrain was always “not my will, but thine, be done.”⁹

And remember this: Christ taught that the Father knows the things we need even before we ask Him.¹⁰ So our prayers should be to seek to understand what God wants for us.

As you build a deeper relationship with God through sincere prayer, I know you will be better able to understand the language of the Spirit to help guide you through the choices ahead.

Trust in the Covenant Path

What should we do when we’re trying our best and we still feel lost?

We can take courage that when we’re doing the right things and standing in the right places—when we are keeping our sacred covenants—God is illuminating our path and guiding our footsteps. Elder David A. Bednar reminded us that as long as we are keeping our covenants and repenting daily, then “we are influenced by the Holy Ghost all the time.”¹¹

Now, have you ever agonized over whether a thought is from the Spirit or just from yourself? Elder Bednar said, “The more time we spend worrying about that, the more we get in our own way in recognizing the consequences of having the companionship of the Holy Ghost.”¹²

Sometimes we are deciding between two good decisions, and, as the Lord instructed the Saints, the choice “mattereth not.”¹³ We are free to use our God-given judgment, and the Lord will approve. This isn’t because we or our decisions don’t matter to God. I believe it’s a sign of trust from a loving Heavenly Father who believes in our capacity to make wise decisions for ourselves as we live according to our covenant promises.

Have faith to take a step into the darkness, and more illumination will come.¹⁴ Each covenant we make binds us closer to the Savior until we’re prepared to enter the presence of God. Each covenant has powerful blessings and promises. I testify that when you honor those covenants, God is with you and all things can “work together for your good.”¹⁵

Conclusion

In conclusion, as you start this new semester, remember your heavenly GPS. Trust in the plan, trust in prayer, and trust in your covenants. Trust in God with all your heart this semester. I promise that it will make a difference. I promise that He will help direct your paths as you exercise good judgment and move forward with faith.¹⁶ The destination that God has in store for you is far greater than anything you could imagine.

We love you. And I know God loves you. He knows each of you by name. I testify that God is aware of all of us and that He lives. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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