CHAPTER 21
The past matters nothing compared to the future, because in the future
we can do anything, become anyone we want to become. You know it, now
live it and get out there and change the world!
1 It is my intent to teach doctrine which, if understood, will
reinforce your courage and endurance, even foster a measure of
contentment with circumstances which you did not invite, do not
deserve, but from which you cannot turn away.
2 To reach a goal you have never before attained, you must do things
you have never before done.
3 Your personal possibilities, not for status and position but for
service to God and mankind, are immense, if you will but trust the
Lord to lead you from what you are to what you have the power to
become.
4 “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It
ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as
patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all
that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our
characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more
tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God …
and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we
gain the education that we came here to acquire and which will make us
more like our Father and Mother in heaven.” (As quoted by Spencer W.
Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Co., 1972, page 98.)
5 As someone has said, there is a big difference between 20 years’
experience and 1 year’s experience repeated 20 times. If we understand
the Lord’s teachings and promises, we will learn and grow from our
adversities.
6 I think God feels this way about our lives. Here is a familiar verse
from Ezekiel. He says, “But if the wicked will turn from all his sins
that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is
lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his
transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned
unto him …” (Ezek. 8:21–22). The past is only significant in terms of
what it has made you become.
7 When our time in mortality is complete, what experiences will we be
able to share about our own contribution to this significant period of
our lives and to the furthering of the Lord’s work? Will we be able to
say that we rolled up our sleeves and labored with all our heart,
might, mind, and strength? Or will we have to admit that our role was
mostly that of an observer?
8 If there is one lament I cannot tolerate it is the poor, pitiful,
withered cry, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” If you want to talk
about discouragement, that is one that discourages me. Please don’t
give me any speeches which say “That’s just the way I am.” I’ve heard
that from too many people who wanted to sin and find some principle of
psychology to justify it. And I use the word sin again to cover a vast
range of habits, some seemingly innocent enough, which nevertheless
bring discouragement and doubt and despair.
You can change anything you want to change and you can do it very
fast. That’s another Satanic deception that it takes years and years
to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say,
“I’ll change”--and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work
out and restitutions to make. You may well spend--indeed you had
better spend--the rest of your life proving your repentance is genuine
by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, repentance can come
for you as instantaneously as it did for Alma and the Sons of Mosiah.
Even if you have serious amends to make, it is not likely that you
would qualify for the term “the vilest of sinners” (Mosiah 28:4) which
is Mormon’s phrase in describing these young men. Yet as Alma recounts
his own experience in the 36th chapter of Alma it appears to have been
as instantaneous as it was stunning.
9 Your life is your own, to develop or to destroy. You can blame
others little and yourself almost totally if that life is not a
productive, worthy, full, and abundant one. Others can assist or
hinder you, but the responsibility is yours and you can make it great,
mediocre, or a failure.
10 But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves,
and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the
commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard
concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye
must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.
11 So far as I am personally concerned, I am here as a candidate for
eternity, for heaven and for happiness. I want to secure by my acts a
peace in another world that will impart that happiness and bliss for
which I am seeking.
12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast
off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
13 Don’t live your life in despair, feeling sorry for yourself because
of the mistakes you have made. Let the sunshine in by doing the right
things--now. (See 1 Ne. 22:26.)
14 “The completed beauty of Christ’s life is only the added beauty of
little inconspicuous acts of beauty--talking with the woman at the
well; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his
heart that kept him out of the Kingdom of Heaven; … teaching a little
knot of followers how to pray; kindling a fire and broiling fish that
his disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came
ashore from a night of fishing, cold, tired, and discouraged. All of
these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and
tone of [Christ’s] interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so
enlisted in what is small, so engrossed with what is minute.”
(“Kindness and Love,” in Leaves of Gold, Honesdale, Pa.: Coslet
Publishing Co., 1938, p. 177.)
15 I fear that sometimes we will wait too long to move and miss
certain golden opportunities to build the Church or to feed our Father
in Heaven’s children. We can be careful and yet move forward. It is
better for something to be started than simply discussed. It is better
for a facility to be under construction than under consideration.
16 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time
to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep,
and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to
cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to
embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a
time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend,
and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time
to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
17 “The true way to honor the past is to improve upon it.”
18 Improve your community by active participation and service.
Remember in your civic responsibility that “the only thing necessary
for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke,
in George Seldes, comp., The Great Thoughts, New York: Ballantine
Books, 1985, p. 60). Do something meaningful in defense of your
God-given freedom and liberty.
19 Fellow students of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I commend you for
your faithfulness, but say to you, be even more faithful. I commend
you for your achievements in many fields of activity and study, but
say to you, be even more diligent. I commend you for the spirituality
you have developed and which you emanate, but say to you, be even more
spiritual.
20 Viewed in perspective, 150 years isn’t really a very long time,
even in human history. It is but a brief moment in eternity. You and I
know that, actually, individuals and institutions are measured by
deeds, not days; by service, not centuries. Just as an individual’s
life can often make up in quality what it lacks in length of years, so
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has compressed into
150 years many significant accomplishments. We don’t have to be old to
be great.
21 “To do that which lies before us in daily life is the prime wisdom.”
“He that loseth wealth, loseth much; he that loseth friends loseth
more; but he that loseth his spirit, loseth all.” (Cervantes, Spanish
writer, 1547–1616.)
“Dream, oh youth! Dream nobly and manfully, and thy dreams shall be
thy prophets.” (Lord Bulwer Lytton, English novelist and dramatist,
1803–1873.)
Younger Elder Brooksby
1-The Moving of the Water by Boyd K. Packer, April 1991 General Conference
2-Finding the Way Back by Richard G. Scott, April 1990 General Conference
3-I Am But a Lad by Neal A. Maxwell, February 1982 Liahona
4-In Your Time of Crisis by A. LaVar Thornock, May 1989 Liahona
5-Give Thanks in All Things by Dallin H. Oaks, April 2003 General Conference
6-Overcoming Our Mistakes by Lowell L. Bennion, July 1981 Liahona
7-Are You Sleeping through the Restoration? By Dieter F. Uchtdorf,
April 2014 General Conference
8-For Times of Trouble by Jeffery R. Holland, January 1982 Liahona
9-President Kimball Speaks Out on Planning Your Life by Spencer W.
Kimball, June 1982 Liahona
10-Mosiah 4:30
11-Teachings of the Presidents: John Taylor-Chapter 11: Finding Joy in Life
12-Romans 13:12
13-Finding the Way Back by Richard G. Scott, April 1990 General Conference
14-The Greatest Challenge in the World--Good Parenting by James E.
Faust, October 1990 General Conference
15-The Uttermost Parts of the Earth by Spencer W. Kimball, April 1980 Liahona
16-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
17-Pioneers Are Still Needed by N. Eldon Tanner, July 1977 Liahona
18-To the Single Adult Brethren of the Church Ezra Taft Benson, April
1988 General Conference
19-The Business of Being Derek A. Cuthbert, March 1982 Liahona
20-“Let Us Not Weary in Well Doing” by Spencer W. Kimball, April 1980
General Conference
21-The Nobility of Labor by Heber J. Grant, August 1979 Liahona
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