Tag Archives: Jeffrey R. Holland

A True Neighbor

What does it mean to be a true friend? Consider this,

“Our challenges will be a lot less dramatic than a tar-and-feathering; certainly they won’t involve a crucifixion. And maybe they won’t even be very personal matters at all. Maybe they will involve someone else—perhaps an injustice done to a neighbor, a person much less popular and privileged than yourself.

In cataloging life’s little battles, this may be the least attractive kind of war for you, a bitter cup you especially don’t wish to drink because there seems to be so little advantage in it for you. After all, it’s really someone else’s problem, and like Hamlet you may well lament that “time is out of joint; O cursed spite, / That ever [you were] born to set it right!” (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, sc. 5, lines 187–88). But set it right you must, for “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). And in times of such Doniphan-like defense, it may be risky, even dangerous, to stand true.

Martin Luther King once said,

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others. In dangerous valleys and hazardous pathways, he will lift some bruised and beaten brother to a higher and more noble life. [Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (New York: Harper and Row, 1963)]”

“Bitter Cup and the Bloody Baptism”
Jeffrey R. Holland, 13 January 1987.

“Sex is a River of Fire”, Will and Ariel Durant

While President of Brigham Young University, Jeffrey R. Holland shared with quote from the great historians, Will and Ariel Durant:

No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group.

Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35–36

Forgive and Forget

Jeffrey R. Holland, while President of BYU shared the following story on forgiveness and mercy,

“I grew up in the same town with a boy who had no father and precious few of the other blessings of life. The young men in our community found it easy to tease and taunt and bully him. And in the process of it all he made some mistakes, though I cannot believe his mistakes were more serious than those of his Latter-day Saint friends who made life so miserable for him. He began to drink and smoke, and the gospel principles which had never meant much to him now meant even less. He had been cast in a role by LDS friends who should have known better and he began to play the part perfectly. Soon he drank even more, went to school even less, and went to Church not at all. Then one day he was gone. Some said that they thought he had joined the army.

“That was about 1959 or so. Fifteen or sixteen years later he came home. At least he tried to come home. He had found the significance of the gospel in his life. He had married a wonderful girl, and they had a beautiful family. But he discovered something upon his return. He had changed, but some of his old friends hadn’t—and they were unwilling to let him escape his past.

“This was hard for him and hard for his family. They bought a little home and started a small business, but they struggled both personally and professionally and finally moved away. For reasons that don’t need to be detailed here, the story goes on to a very unhappy ending. He died a year ago at age 44. That’s too young to die these days, and it’s certainly too young to die away from home.

“When a battered, weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore, after having fought strong winds and rough waves which he should never have challenged in the first place, those of us who might have had better judgment, or perhaps just better luck, ought not to row out to his side, beat him with our oars, and shove his head back underwater. That’s not what boats were made for. But some of us do that to each other.”

“A Robe, A Ring, A Fatted Calf”
BYU Devotional

Cherish Your Spiritual Battles

In a discussion of the temptations Christ faced with the wilderness while fasting, Jeffrey R. Holland taught,

“And so I ask you to be patient in things of the spirit. Perhaps your life has been different from mine, but I doubt it. I have had to struggle to know my standing before God. As a teenager I found it hard to pray and harder to fast. My mission was not easy. I struggled as a student only to find that I had to struggle afterwards, too. In this present assignment I have wept and ached for guidance. It seems no worthy accomplishment has ever come easily for me, and maybe it won’t for you—but I’m living long enough to be grateful for that.

“It is ordained that we come to know our worth as children of God without something as dramatic as a leap from the pinnacle of the temple. All but a prophetic few must go about God’s work in very quiet, very unspectacular ways. And as you labor to know him, and to know that he knows you; as you invest your time—and your convenience—in quiet, unassuming service, you will indeed find that “he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up” (Matthew 4:6). It may not come quickly. It probably won’t come quickly, but there is purpose in the time it takes. Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do his work if you carry them well.”

“The Inconvenient Messiah”
BYU Devotional Address, 15 February 1982

Ethics of Ease

Jeffrey R. Holland, while president of Brigham Young University, shared this observation.

“There is another, more subtle tactic used by the primeval turncoat which is not so violent, not so vengeful, and at first glance not so vicious. But, ah, there’s the rub. Because Christ and his disciples—Satan’s most important and necessary targets—would never seem to be attracted by flagrant, raging wrongdoing, this second approach becomes all the more sinister. It comes in the siren’s song of convenience. It is, in the parlance of your day, “laid back.” It says to every would-be Messiah—”Enjoy!” Its anthem might well be from Diana Ross—”Ease on Down the Road.” Surely fluttering somewhere over the highway to hell is the local chamber of horrors banner reading, “Welcome to the ethics of ease.”

“The Inconvenient Messiah”
BYU Devotional

Formula for Faith

Jeffrey R. Holland taught,

The formula of faith is to hold on, work on, see it through, and let the distress of earlier hours—real or imagined—fall away in the abundance of the final reward.

(2012 April General Conference, The Laborers in the Vineyard, Sat. Afternoon Session – Jeffrey R. Holland)

Bishop Dyer’s Loyalty

Transcript:
The late Alvin R. Dyer faced something of this challenge when he was a bishop many years ago. He had a member of his ward who said that smoking was the greatest single enjoyment he got out of life. He said, “At night I set my alarm every hour on the hour and wake up to smoke a cigarette. Bishop, I love smoking just too much to give it up.”

A few evenings later the man’s doorbell rang at 10:00 p.m. There on the doorstep was Bishop Dyer.

“Well, Bishop, what on earth are you doing here at this hour? I’m ready to go to bed.”

“I know,” said Bishop Dyer. “I want to see you set that alarm and watch you wake up and smoke.”

“Good heavens, I can’t do that in front of you,” the man said.

“Oh, sure you can. Don’t worry about me. I’ll just sit in the corner somewhere and be very quiet.”

The man invited him in and they talked about everything Bishop Dyer could conjure up to hold the man’s interest. “I pursued every idea and conversation I could think of to keep him speaking. I thought he was going to throw me out a number of times, but shortly after three o’clock in the morning I said, ‘Well, heavenly days! You’ve missed five alarms already. Please forgive me! I have ruined your evening’s enjoyment. The night is such a disappointment now that you might as well just go to bed and forget the rest of the alarms this once!'”

Then note this language:

At that moment [I] felt [in him] a sense of honor and a dignity. . . . He looked at me with a peculiar smile. . . and he said, “All right, I will.” [And] he never touched another cigarette [for the rest of his life]. [See Alvin R. Dyer, Conference Report, April 5, 1965, p. 85.]

How would you describe Brother Dyer’s loyalty? Was it loyalty to that inactive man, or loyalty to the members of his ward generally, or loyalty to his office as bishop, or loyalty to the Word of Wisdom, or loyalty to the principle of revelation, or loyalty to the Church, or loyalty to God, or—well, you get my point.

 

Jeffrey R. Holland was president of Brigham Young University when this devotional address was given on 21 January 1986.

The full address of this talk is available on BYU’s Speeches Website.

Envy

Elder Holland said,

Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!

2012 April General Conference, The Laborers in the Vineyard, Sat. Afternoon Session – Jeffrey R. Holland