A Moment to Remember

Years ago when I was a teenager, our family drove from Henderson, Nevada to visit cousins in Utah. While there, we drove to Salt Lake City and walked around Temple Square. I had only a marginal interest in things that were so old, but I dutifully followed everyone else around. My mom was especially taken by the experience. As we entered the hand-crafted and domed tabernacle something caught my eye. It was the pulpit, framed by choir seats and the famed tabernacle organ pipes. It probably captured my notice because I was seeing something I recognized from TV; likely an occasional general conference or some other important meeting. As my family moved on, I remained behind still focused on the intricate woodwork at which prophets of God had spoken.

Then, in an unexpected moment, I had a clear impression, that one day, I would speak from that very pulpit. It was an odd feeling, but very real to me. I have since realized that the feeling as the the Holy Ghost; a feeling or “voice" I have learned to recognize many times over the succeeding years. But that day it was a bit foreign to me. Nonetheless, I knew what I felt and wondered what it meant. Well, you know how long the attention span of a teenager is. Soon I shook my head and hurried to catch up with my family. Though I have only shared that experience with a few people, I have never forgotten that special moment. Still, the Lord has left me to wonder how such a thing could ever be fulfilled. And of course, the natural man has always tried to get me to believe it was all just a bad case of chills.

Well, on February 17, 2017 at about 5:45 pm, I found myself entering a south side door of the tabernacle. Mom and I were ushered to a seat on the front row facing the same pulpit I had stared at some 50 years earlier. The meeting was a professional event called An Evening with a General Authority. The meeting began on time and we sang the celebrated hymn “Redeemer of Israel" and enjoyed a robust opening prayer. After a few words of counsel from an administrator and an introduction of the special speaker, a choir of teachers and wives favored us with the inspiring number: “Lead, Kindly Light.” Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Presidency of the Seventy then addressed us. His message was deep and carefully crafted to reach teachers of the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion throughout the world. He obviously had prepared well and left us inspired with his abiding testimony of the Savior of the world. The choir then concluded the Spirit-filled meeting with a new arrangement of “I Am a Child of God.”

That’s when it happened: after so many years, all the stars finally lined up and a revelation was fulfilled. I carefully made my way to the pulpit. The same pulpit from which prophets have testified of the latter-day Restoration of the Church and kingdom of God. The same pulpit where inspired leaders have declared unto latter-day Saints young and old, Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the sins of the world. The same pulpit from which modern revelation has been proclaimed to the ends of the earth. And now, on this night, with a global audience watching or listening in, I stepped up to the pulpit and gave the benediction: indeed, an inspired prayer.

Now, I realize that I have used up a lot of words to tell you a story that could have been shared in a single and quick paragraph. I also realize that many of you have given closing prayers at some time in your lives. But I hope you’ve read between the lines. Clearly this event has a great deal of meaning for me. However, isn’t there something in it for you too? For example, the Lord loved me enough to provide a moment of inspiration that stayed with me, and inspired me, throughout my life. I pondered it now and again, always wondering how it might be fulfilled. Another lesson I’ve learned from this experience has to do with the Lord’s timing. It took somewhere close to 50 years for this moment to come to pass. Wait patiently upon the Lord. One other take-away for me was this: since the event was fulfilled as part of an assignment related to my career, what might that mean for my choices in life? Even a career choice can have lasting and deep meaning and purpose in our lives.

So, try to recognize even the seeming insignificant things in your life. Make sure you give your life meaning. Regardless of the career or life’s choices you make, remember that God is in the details and cares about who you are, what you are becoming, and what you do even at work. There is not a facet of your life that escapes His view. Live with confidence. Approach each day with the sense that there will be meaning and purpose for you as you live it. Believe less in coincidences and more in foreordination. Why? Because God has an individual plan for each of us. He delivered that plan to us in heaven before we came to earth. We can fulfill that plan as we put Him first in our lives and seek to do His will. So, as the Lord revealed to a young prophet Joseph Smith, “be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [your] own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in [you], wherein [you] are agents unto [yourselves]” (D&C 58:27-28).