“Fear Not, Little Flock”

When I was a young child, I had a terrible fear of vampires. I was convinced one lived under my bed, just waiting for me to get too close to the edge so he could drag me under—and that would be the end of me.

My fear was so strong that I developed a strict morning and nighttime routine to keep myself “safe.” At night I would run from the hallway to my bedroom and launch myself onto the bed from several feet away, careful not to let even a toe get near the floor. In the morning I’d stand in the far corner of my bed, press my back against the wall, and then sprint across the mattress and leap to the doorway. I did this every day, morning and night, for months.

It all sounds very terrifying, but it’s important to note that the vampire living under my bed was the Count from Sesame Street. If you aren’t familiar with him, he is a Muppet—a cheerful character made of foam and fleece who taught me to count. In fairness to little me, I had heard Halloween stories about vampires, and he was the only vampire I had ever seen, so naturally he became the one I imagined lurking under my bed.

This story seems silly to us as adults. All of us know that Muppets are relatively harmless (except for Miss Piggy), vampires don’t exist, and nothing lives under our beds unless we let it. And yet my fear of the Count was very real to me then. I completely reengineered how I got in and out of bed day and night. Instead of facing fear, I changed my habits and actions in response to it.

I wish I could tell you that after reflecting on this childhood story I never let fear drive my actions again. However, honest reflection has a way of gently revealing where we still have room to grow, and it helps us see that fear often hides behind caution, hesitation, or excuses that seem reasonable in the moment. I, perhaps like some of you, have missed opportunities, experiences, growth, direction, and understanding simply because I acted out of fear. Fear, even when subtle or disguised as caution or hesitation, can keep us from becoming who the Lord is inviting us to be.

Yet feeling fear is part of being human. It is not always an indication of weakness or a lack of faith. All of us experience fear. Our Heavenly Father created our bodies to experience an instinctive response to anything our brain perceives as a threat, whether real or imagined. In those moments, our hearts race, our breathing quickens, and stress hormones like adrenaline surge through us. Our muscles tighten, and we feel the urge to freeze, fight, or flee. These responses are meant to protect us and keep us safe. This is a natural, instinctive fear.

That said, not all fears serve to protect us from immediate danger. Today I want to focus on our anticipatory fears. These fears involve imagining future loss, pain, or suffering. In a world full of uncertainty, it’s easy to get caught up in these fears. They can show up as fear of failure, rejection, grief, being alone, missing out, not being enough, or even being too much. These fears tell us, “There is no fail-safe. This is a win-or-lose-all game.” Such fears tend to linger, shaping our behaviors and decisions over time, often to avoid perceived pain and loss. They are the kind of fears that can prevent us from moving forward. As you listen, I invite you to quietly reflect on where anticipatory fears appear in your own life.

While we all experience some form of anticipatory fears from time to time, these fears were not given to us by God. They originate from Satan. President Gordon B. Hinckley stated: “Fear comes not from God but from the [adversary].”¹ It is a tool of Satan to make us miserable and to keep us from progressing. Satan works hardest to diminish our spiritual gifts and the assurance of our divine heritage. He works tirelessly to convince us we are the one person God does not love. He can even turn our works and our faith into a fearful exercise of trying to make God love us. He perverts godly fear, and he convinces us that nothing we do is enough and that we will never be enough. He takes our sights and focuses them away from the true nature of God and His love for us. In that dark place, it is hard to do anything but fear.

Because Heavenly Father knew we would face fears that have the potential of disorienting and crippling us, He blessed us with the ability to overcome them. As Paul taught in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Power gives us courage and divine authority to resist temptations and to act in God’s name. We are given power and protection through our covenants with Him. Love fills us with Christlike compassion, not just for others but also for ourselves, helping us overcome hate, selfishness, and contention. Loving as the Savior loves fills us with hope and light and “casteth out fear.”² A sound mind is calm, clear, and able to discern. It is a mind that is open to the promptings of the Spirit and that can call to memory what we have learned about who we are and who God is to us. Satan would have you forget all these blessings. He is the father of lies and mental chaos.

I know this struggle well. My own anticipatory fears nearly stopped me before I even started my journey at BYU. To start, I didn’t really want to go to BYU. I wanted to stay in California and was determined to do something different from all the other kids in my ward. Truthfully, I know that one of the biggest reasons I didn’t want to go to BYU was because I feared I wasn’t smart or spiritual enough to make it here. But the Lord knew otherwise. He strongly prompted me to apply and to attend BYU. I followed that prompting.

Often when we act faithfully on promptings, we believe that the challenge is over. But from experience, most of us know that isn’t always true. Despite my efforts to move forward in faith, I felt impostor syndrome right away. My major was full of valedictorians who were more articulate and who were better writers than I was. And as a transfer student, I felt everyone understood everything better than I did, including the BYU fight song. I struggled at church and in my religion classes to feel that I understood the gospel as well as everyone else did. I was being swallowed up in self-doubt. Everywhere I turned, all I could see was evidence that all the fears I had about myself before coming here were true. I did not belong at BYU.

However, that year I was blessed to end up in an apartment with some of the most wonderful women of faith. They helped me reframe my thoughts and focus on all God had done to prepare me for BYU and on what this opportunity could mean for my spiritual and intellectual growth. I began to understand the roles that Heavenly Father, the Savior, and the Holy Ghost played in my life and learning. Realizing this freed me to come to this experience imperfectly, trusting that They could make me more than I was. This perspective also helped me better see others in their own struggles and extend love and comfort to them. Most of all, it calmed my mind. I did belong here, and God knew it was where I could thrive and grow. I shudder to think of all I would have missed if I had surrendered completely to those fears.

As you consider some of the anticipatory fears you are facing, I would like to suggest three things I think we can do so our fears don’t hold us hostage and preclude us from the gifts and growth Heavenly Father has in mind for us.

Look to Christ

First, look to Christ and know who you are to Him.

Christ is always inviting us to let go of fear and look to Him. In one of His most gentle supplications, He said in Doctrine and Covenants 6:34: “Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.” As we read in Helaman 5:12, “it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God that ye must build your foundation.”

Christ is our rock. He is our protector and stable foundation. Building our foundation on Christ means centering ourselves on His teachings, following His example, making covenants and keeping them, and believing in and trusting in His Atonement. It means we keep our eyes fixed on Him. When we do, we are promised

that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.³

It seems like it should be a no-brainer to keep our focus on Christ, knowing the protection and strength He offers. And yet, as mortals who are striving to be better disciples and to act in faith, we sometimes get distracted by the chaos around us and let fear take over.

My favorite illustration of this is in Matthew 14. In this chapter, Jesus had just fed the five thousand. The disciples had gone ahead of Him in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. Later that night the wind began to blow and the waves became rough. The disciples were struggling when, “in the fourth watch of the night”⁴—sometime between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m.—Jesus came walking across the water to them. They thought He was a spirit and cried out. Jesus immediately comforted them: “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.”⁵

Hearing these words, Peter called out: “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.”⁶ Jesus invited him, and Peter stepped out of the boat and began walking on the water toward Jesus. I love to think of this moment—Peter’s eyes fixed firmly on the Savior and moving fearlessly toward Him.

And then, for a brief moment, Peter looked away and saw the wind and the waves. Can you imagine not just the immediate instinctive fear he felt but also his anticipatory fears as he realized he was sinking?

• What if I can’t do this?
• What if I’m not worthy?
• What if I haven’t done enough? been enough? believed enough?

Overwhelmed by his fears and doubts, he sank further into the water. He cried out, “Lord, save me.”⁷

Christ did not hesitate. He immediately reached out His hand and caught Peter and said, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”⁸

Just as Christ reminded Peter of who He was and where his focus needed to be, He reminds us of who we are. His desire to give us a foundation we can rely on in times of fear is rooted in His sure knowledge that we are children of Heavenly Father.

I have the blessing and privilege to serve in the Young Women organization in my ward. Every other week I feel teary hearing these strong and faithful young women say the following words together: “I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents, with a divine nature and eternal destiny.”⁹ This short sentence reaffirms our divine heritage. We are endowed with power and glory. Our covenants bind us to our Father in Heaven and strengthen us. He sees and knows our infinite capacity.

If you wonder if this is true for everyone else but not for you, here are some thoughts: Remember the covenants you have made with God. In all of them, He has poured out the same blessings and promises to you that He has for everyone else. Look at your patriarchal blessing. It provides powerful insight into the potential you possess and the gifts God has given you. Think about blessings you have received or moments of personal revelation. Remember the moments when you felt His love, peace, or guidance. You are His child and He loves you; nothing you do, say, or think will change that eternal truth. These blessings and memories can remind you of the rock you stand on, the foundation that keeps you steady and unmovable.

Throughout the scriptures we see examples of people who, when faced with fear and difficulty, remembered their divine nature and eternal destiny. We see it in Moses as he faced Satan, Esther as she approached the king, Abinadi as he stood before King Noah’s priests, and so many others. Their examples remind us that we, too, can find the courage to stand strong in the face of fear as we look to Christ.

“Be Not Afraid, Only Believe”

Second, to overcome fear and be who you are meant to be, “be not afraid, only believe.”¹⁰

As I shared my experiences from when I first came to BYU, perhaps some of you could relate. Maybe you’ve had moments like that in your own life. I invite you to reflect with me for a moment: What might have been lost if, during those hard times, you hadn’t chosen to believe and move forward in faith? My reflection has led me to consider the blessings and growth I would have given up in my life if I had allowed myself to be overcome by the fears and doubts I felt at that time. Now consider your life and some of the trials, decisions, and fears you face today. In what ways might fear and disbelief be holding you back from growth opportunities right now?

As I have accumulated life lessons and hopefully a little wisdom, I have seen that fear and doubt have often taken over me just as I was about to reach the finish line. I did not necessarily struggle to follow the first prompting or to have faith that I was going in the right direction. Instead, my belief wavered after I had put in the work and walked forward in faith and was waiting to see how it would turn out.

The idea that God knows our journey and can work miracles along the way reminds me of the book The Alchemist by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. It is a story of a Spanish shepherd boy named Santiago who dreams of finding treasure at the pyramids in Egypt. Santiago sells his sheep and embarks on a journey to find his treasure.

After great sacrifice and unexpected detours, Santiago finally nears the treasure he has diligently sought. He’s so close, but he experiences doubt and fear. What if there’s nothing here? What if it was all for nothing?

This is a moment of transformation and reframing for Santiago. He must decide if the value of his choices and sacrifices will be defined by whether he finds gold or by the wisdom he has gained along the journey. Early in Santiago’s journey, a desert driver provided him with this advice: “We are afraid of losing what we have. . . . But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”¹¹

Just like Santiago, we often come to moments in which we’ve come so far—we’ve followed promptings, endured trials, and trusted God. And now, standing at the edge of our promise, we’re asked to take the final step into the unknown and believe. In those moments, we might pause and think:

• What if I’m wrong?
• What if I trusted something that wasn’t real and put all my faith in it?
• What if this costs me everything?
• What if God doesn’t show up?

In the New Testament in Mark and Luke, we read about “a ruler of the synagogue” named Jairus.¹² His young daughter was very sick. Mark wrote, “When he saw him [Christ], he fell at his feet . . . and besought him greatly.”¹³

This was all done in a moment when many were seeking Christ; He was surrounded by crowds of people. In fact, in His journey to help Jairus’s daughter, He stopped to comfort and heal the woman who had “an issue of blood twelve years.”¹⁴ Just after Christ healed this woman, someone came to Jairus and said, “Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?”¹⁵

Take a moment to consider what Jairus might have been feeling. I don’t know exactly what Jairus thought or felt in that moment, but as a parent, I imagine that I would have felt utterly defeated and heartbroken.

In this crushing moment, Christ knew the pain of Jairus’s heart and spoke the following gentle, loving words: “Be not afraid, only believe.”¹⁶

This moment holds deep meaning for all of us. How often do we feel like Jairus—desperate for help, clinging to hope—and then something happens that makes us wonder if it’s too late. And then we begin to fear. What if we’ve hoped in vain? What if we’ve come so far, only to be disappointed? But we are reminded that God is never too late. Even in our darkest, most hopeless moments, the Savior whispers to us, “Be not afraid, only believe.”¹⁷

My journey to motherhood was a difficult road, full of opportunities to exercise faith and experience challenges that have helped me become the woman I am today. Six years into our marriage, we found out we were expecting our first child. It was the most wonderful news I had ever received! However, the pregnancy proved to be very challenging, and at thirty-one weeks, our baby was born. He weighed three pounds one ounce, and he was immediately admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). By the end of his first day, he was nearing two-and-a-half pounds. He was so tiny and frail, and I feared that after all my hopes and prayers, I would lose this beloved child.

In those first hours and in the weeks to come, I experienced every doubt and fear imaginable. I doubted myself and agonized over my own worthiness as a mother and whether this had somehow been my fault. I grieved the potential of losing him and of God not providing us the blessings we were seeking. I was scared, and I was fighting to believe that Heavenly Father knew how this story would and needed to work out. When I look back, I can see Satan hard at work, and I can see God’s repeated comfort and patience with me as I learned to exercise faith.

It can be hard to “be not afraid, only believe.” We may do it imperfectly, in fact. Even then, Heavenly Father and our Savior work with us to increase our faith in ways that help us become who They know we can be! In Alma 32:27 we read:

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

You don’t have to be perfect to move forward into unknown places and difficult times. You just have to “exercise a particle of faith” and have a “desire to believe.” In those NICU days, when things looked grim, sometimes all I could do was have a desire to believe. But I found it to be a creative process—one that brought hope, joy, and peace. When I allowed myself to go to places of fear and despair, all I felt was the destruction of hope, joy, and peace. I testify that the Lord took those desires and helped to build my faith, which gave me courage to face challenges and to believe.

With my oldest child, things did turn out well, and he has been a tremendous blessing in my life. But over the next nine years, I gave birth to my second son, a sweet little boy, and lost seven other pregnancies. In those challenging moments, I felt incredible fear at times. I had to learn over and over again how to desire to believe, how to act on a particle of faith, and how to trust God, His love, and His plan for me.

In the moments when you are tempted to say, “This is happening to me because I am not worthy enough” or “I am so scared that I am not enough to face what is ahead of me,” remember what President Jeffrey R. Holland said: “You are His child, to whom He has given prophets and promises, spiritual gifts and revelations, miracles and messages, and angels on both sides of the veil.”¹⁸ You have the power to move forward in faith and strength toward your eternal destiny.

One of the places I see this manifest most in my work here at BYU is in the struggles students face in defining what their career and life after graduation will look like. Many times my conversations with them go to an exploration of when things did work out and when God carefully guided them down a path. I also testify that God does care what you do with your life and your talents and how you use them to bless the world. He will not forsake you. He will show up and lead you toward opportunities that allow you to learn and grow. “Be not afraid, only believe.”

Act in Faith

Third, act in faith.

We have been blessed with power, love, a sound mind, angels, prophets, covenants, scriptures, and so much more. They are all loving reminders of our Heavenly Father’s desire to help us progress and not be paralyzed by fear. When we allow these gifts to work in our lives, we can have the courage and power to act. You may at times face fears that are so overwhelming that you feel there is no way to move forward or to believe that you will be okay. You may be asked to leave comfortable situations to go to uncomfortable ones. You will suffer losses, pains, and sorrows, even when you are doing your best to act in faith. But remember that Christ has knowledge of things that are and that are to come.¹⁹ He has the power to overcome all things, and He loves you and knows personally what you are feeling and facing.

Acting in faith means coming back to those truths over and over until we can believe them and act in a way that allows them to change our lives. In Doctrine and Covenants 78:18, the Lord reminded us:

And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.

So many great men and women before you have faced similar fears and feelings. I invite you to draw courage from their examples. Think of Joseph Smith as he suffered in Liberty Jail and cried out, “O God, where art thou?”²⁰

The Lord answered with comfort, perspective, and this gentle command: “Fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”²¹

Pain and Belief Can Coexist

Before we go our separate ways today, I want to close with one last thought. We often hear stories of great people who overcame fear and acted with belief and faith while they were also experiencing great loss and grief. So often the stories are told as if to be faithful, overcome fear, and act, we must simultaneously bury, deny, or ignore the pain, sorrow, grief, or loss we feel.

Faith is not the absence of sorrow, sadness, struggle, or pain. These feelings often coexist with faith. Jairus felt the pain of his daughter’s death, but he still chose to hear the Savior’s call to believe and took Christ to his house. We may fear, mourn, or feel anxious that something in our future could lead to pain and suffering. Not all those experiences are ones we can avoid. In those painful moments, we can still choose to link arms with the Savior and seek His help.

I am the oldest of five children—four girls and one boy. In 2022 my brother, Houston, suffered a heart attack. Unfortunately he was not found right away, and his long-term lack of oxygen caused a brain injury. Over the days we spent with him in the intensive care unit, I can safely say that I have never prayed harder or exercised more faith. And yet, day by day, Houston got worse, and eventually we were told that he would not live. It was hard to accept that despite the faith and prayers of so many wonderful people, we were going to lose Houston. And yet we did. My heart was broken.

But pain and sadness and faith can coexist. I and many others fought all the anticipatory fears of losing Houston and facing life without him with as much faith as we could muster. We kept praying, kept hoping, and kept trusting that God knew Houston’s path even when we could no longer see the miracle we were hoping for.

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said:

There are so many things in life that God sees differently than we do. . . .

We tend to think of joy as the absence of sorrow.

But what if joy is not the absence of sorrow?

What if joy and sorrow can coexist?

What if they have to coexist?²²

The pain of losing my brother helped me to seek peace and to solidify my faith in the covenants I had made with God and the promises that came with them. My sorrow solidified and increased my joy and belief in the Atonement and Resurrection. I could act with the hope that my brother could be restored completely. I know that in those great moments of pain, it can seem impossible that joy could coexist. It may not be the joy we hoped we could experience had the miracle we prayed for been granted, but God does not leave us alone.

Elder Uchtdorf said:

As His covenant people, we need not be paralyzed by fear because bad things might happen. Instead, we can move forward with faith, courage, determination, and trust in God as we approach the challenges and opportunities ahead. . . .

In the face of fear, let us find our courage, muster our faith, and have confidence in the promise that “no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.”²³

Remember Christ’s invitation and promise to you: “Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.”

I testify that He can give you courage, fortify your faith, and bless you with peace and joy as you put one foot in front of the other and act. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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