Hello, BYU students, faculty, staff, friends, and family! Really, we Southerners are more comfortable just saying, \u201cHi, y\u2019all!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now before we launch into this devotional, I have to share a little experience I had on May 1, 2014, with your wonderful and, at the time, brand-new BYU president, President Kevin J Worthen. He, Sister Worthen, and I, along with about a thousand Relief Society sisters, were standing at long tables in the Smith Fieldhouse filling food boxes for humanitarian aid. We had on hairnets\u2014nice yellow ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ended up standing next to President Worthen for a while. His job was to hold open a plastic bag while I poured beans and lentils into the bag. We were doing pretty well until either the next plastic bag wasn\u2019t opened enough or I got distracted and missed the bag, because suddenly President Worthen had lentils falling all over his shoes. There he stood, with little beans on his feet and a hairnet on his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He looked at me with a somewhat mournful smile and said, \u201cWell, this is my first day on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Worthen, you\u2019ve come a long way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brothers and sisters, I hope that when we walk out of this devotional, the Spirit will have assured us of two certainties. First, I hope that we will know that when we focus on Jesus Christ faithfully and intently, we draw His strength into our souls. Second, when we act on this spiritual strength and do things His way, we will understand more deeply that there is no other name or way whereby salvation can come to us, \u201conly in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.\u201d1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n How do we focus consistently on Christ and act on His strength? We choose <\/em>throughout the day to be open to the Spirit and to act on those promptings. We covenant weekly to always remember Christ. President Russell M. Nelson has taught, \u201cNothing invites the Spirit more than fixing your focus on Jesus Christ.\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was a little girl, during the hot, muggy Louisiana summers, my father would promise us kids that if we were ready and waiting when he got home from work, he would take us swimming at the city park pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 5 p.m. on most afternoons, I and two of my younger brothers lined up on the hot cement curb in front of our house, dressed in our swimming suits with towels around our necks, peering seriously down the street at the corner. Even the hot pavement couldn\u2019t break our \u00adconcentration\u2014though sometimes we would jump back to the cool grass of the front yard for a moment, we would not shift our gaze from the far corner of the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Daddy\u2019s green Ford rounded the corner, we cheered, jumping up and down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He would get out of the car, pull his tie off, and say, \u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d Soon he would return in his swimming suit, and we would be on our way to the pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why did we three young kids stay so sharply focused? Why were we so certain we would get to go swimming? Because we knew our father. Because we knew he loved us, and we had felt his love. Because he kept his promises, so we trusted him. And because we knew he had power that we didn\u2019t have: he could drive a car and get us to the swimming pool! So we focused on him\u2014our unfailing driver\u2014and trusted that he would get us where we wanted to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do we truly know the Lord, feel His love, and trust His almighty capacity to take us to a place of healing, love, and progress? If so, do we look to Him steadily?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where is your focus during daily life, and where is your focus when you are facing challenges? President Nelson has said, \u201cMy brothers and sisters, I plead with you to make time for the Lord!\u201d3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n What is the ratio of time we spend between making time for the Lord and making time for the world? When we want answers, do we first look to the trending opinions of others or the philosophies of the world? Do we first search the internet, hoping that we will find out how to have confidence in social situations or how to choose a major or that we will discover tips for getting along with our roommate or even ways to be healed from the deepest wounds in our hearts? Is the Lord far from the thoughts and intents of our hearts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we depend only upon the world and its answers, we are going to be disappointed sooner or later. Spiritual wisdom, real peace, healing, and godly discernment come to us from Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost. They do not come from the opinions of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We choose the direction of our thoughts and actions. We choose where we turn for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It takes mental effort to look to Christ when other places offer quicker answers. The more we look to Him, remember Him, and learn of Him in the scriptures, the more we will trust Him and go in His name to Heavenly Father for direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look Where You Want to Go<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I recently had a delightful conversation with an Olympic champion. Her name is Noelle Pikus Pace, winner of the silver medal in the skeleton race in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. I asked Sister Pace, along with her husband, Janson, about skeleton sledding and how in the world she steered the sled, since she was flat on her stomach with her hands at her sides as she moved along the ice at about ninety miles per hour. Let\u2019s hear what she had to say [a video was shown]:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neill Marriot<\/strong>t:<\/strong>Noelle, thank you. It\u2019s a privilege to be here in your beautiful home with you and Janson. I am so honored that you would spend time with me. I don\u2019t know a thing about skeleton racing or sledding or whatever you call it, but would you just talk to us about what it is, how you race, how you train, how you steer, how you flop down on your tummy on that sled and scoot down the track, and what part Janson has played?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Noelle Pikus Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong> So skeleton is a crazy headfirst sport, where an athlete runs and jumps headfirst onto their stomach on a tiny little cookie sheet. We fly down the side of a mountain going ninety miles an hour, and we steer using our shoulders and our knees, applying pressure\u2014just light pressure\u2014to guide the sled the entire way down a mile-long course to hopefully and ultimately cross the finish line.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marriot<\/strong>t:<\/strong> And the sled is only about three feet long, isn\u2019t it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s about three feet, and it weighs about sixty-five pounds, so it has got some weight to it. Janson actually built and designed my sled for the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games, so he actually knows a lot more about the content of the sled. And then I enjoy driving it down the track.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marriot<\/strong>t:<\/strong> Janson, how did you know how to do this, and how does she move one shoulder and get it to go? What does the sled do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Janson Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong>I had a small background in designing with Solidworks, a 3D modeling program, and it seemed like a fun opportunity for me. More important, she really needed a sled to get down the track. I realized that in order for her to be able to focus and to get down the track where she needed to go, she needed some equipment that was going to help her do that. And she struggled for a while to find the right equipment, so I just crossed my fingers one day\u2014one summer, I guess I should say\u2014and went to work.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Noelle Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong> A lot of prayer\u2014a lot went into that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marriot<\/strong>t:<\/strong> This is a long journey. You were injured in\u2014was it 2004?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong>So leading up to the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, I was hit by a bobsled. I remember realizing at that time when this Olympic dream was just taken in a split second that I had a choice to make. I could either look back and be upset and frustrated that I missed out on this grand opportunity or I could choose to move forward. At that time I decided to move forward with the help of a great team, with the support of my husband, my family, and so many wonderful people around me. We were able to come back. And in order to do that, I had to set goals along the way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marriot<\/strong>t:<\/strong> So how do you get to the finish line, to the goal, when you have no steering wheel? There doesn\u2019t seem to be any visible sign of control.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong> So as a rookie, a lot of times you make the mistake of thinking that it\u2019s these massive changes that you need to make in order to get yourself down the track. But as an elite athlete, you start to realize that it\u2019s the subtle changes and that something as simple as looking where you want to go will put you where you need to be. \u201cWhere you look is where you go\u201d was a statement that I would tell myself for years leading up to that Olympic podium. Just look where you want to go and then make the subtle adjustments to get there.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marriot<\/strong>t:<\/strong> Well, thank you. Thank you for your wisdom, your courage, and your determination to make it after having broken legs and all kinds of problems before. But I just have in my mind your statement that you go where you look. To me there is great wisdom in that, and it applies to our life and to all our decisions and choices. So thank you for the great example you\u2019ve been. It\u2019s been a joy to talk to you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pac<\/strong>e:<\/strong> Thanks so much.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sister Pace said, \u201cWhere you look is where you go.\u201d She also said that she made subtle changes in her efforts to run the race. It is not usually a massive change that we need to make to return to the Lord and His ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where do you want to end up? Ultimately we want to go home to our glorious celestial home with our heavenly parents. And the Savior is the only way back to our heavenly parents\u2019 presence. Our acceptance of His act of Atonement is essential. Elder Tad R. Callister wrote, \u201cThough our life seems empty or pointless, . . . there is a miraculous rebirth . . . that emerges with our acceptance of the Savior and his Atonement<\/em>.\u201d4<\/sup> Do we understand the absolute truth stated in 1 Nephi 10:6? \u201cAll mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need help. We need grace.<\/em> And we will have it if we rely on Christ!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes, when His grace seems slow in coming, we must prove that we are serious about relying on Christ. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke of \u201cactive waiting and . . . staying with something and doing all that we can . . . , even when the desires of our hearts are delayed.\u201d5<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n When our twenty-one-year-old daughter, Georgia, was critically injured in an accident, her father and I were serving a mission in Brazil. We hurriedly got a flight back to the United States. We trusted that the Lord would answer our fervent prayers. Georgia was given a priesthood blessing by a worthy priesthood holder\u2014her brother\u2014and we knew the Lord had the power to heal her. But she died before our plane landed. We had prayed that she would live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did the Lord hear our prayers? Yes. Did He answer them in the way we had pleaded He would? No. Should we have bitterly turned away from Him and looked to some other source for peace and understanding? No. There is no other source of lasting peace and eternal life than Jesus Christ. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed with our troubles, but the Lord is stronger than our challenges. He gives us strength and inspiration to face them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love Nephi\u2019s perspective when Laman and Lemuel complained, saying that Laban, keeper of the plates of brass, \u201cis a mighty man, and . . . he can slay fifty; then why not us?\u201d6<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nephi declared, \u201cLet us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; for behold he is mightier than . . . Laban and his fifty, yea, or even than his tens of thousands.\u201d7<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lord is mightier than our fears, our disappointments, our weariness, and even our deep wounds of the heart! He is the great healer and guide through our deep waters; He waits for us to come to Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is true that we have to shoulder our burdens and do hard work, but when we look with hope and love to Christ, we will be given compensating blessings that will bind us to Him in powerful ways\u2014even if our challenge remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking humbly and constantly to the Lord leads us to repentance\u2014a change of heart and action. In 2021 our prophet, President Nelson, said, \u201cI have thought about the need for each of us to remove, with the Savior\u2019s help, the old debris in our lives.\u201d8<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOld debris\u201d! I have felt the weariness of old debris. Whether it is troubling doubt about gospel truths, sin, resentment, fear, anger, confusion, pride, or other things, do you have old debris in your life? The Spirit can lead us to honestly recognize and remove our deep-seated baggage.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLet Go of Old Debris<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n