An Evening with Elder NealA. Maxwell
“Glorify Christ”
Elder NealA. Maxwell
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Address to CES Religious Educators • 2 February 2001 • Salt Lake Tabernacle
Thank you for that beautiful music and the spiritual zest with which it was delivered. Thanks to all of you for assembling in a variety of places. Your devotion is so commendable. I am grateful to be here. Words in the Book of Mormon tell us about how even when we do our duty, Heavenly Father “doth immediately bless” us (Mosiah 2:24). I feel that way about tonight. This is one of those opportunities provided by the Lord in terms of the remission I have received—whatever its future length may be, and I like to pay a little rent in return for that remission. But then I quickly recover my spiritual balance and realize that whenever we do that which He wants us to do, He doth immediately bless us. Being with you is that kind of blessing.
I’m not good with numbers, those who have associated with me know that. After I was able to memorize 12 times12 equals144, things got very murky for me, but I would guess that Elder Eyring, between his service as President of Rick’s College and twice as commissioner, is over two decades, anyway. Someday perhaps he will choose to tell this story, but I would simply say that he and I had only met once briefly before his call to watch over Ricks. It is interesting, as you have found, how the Lord gives us spiritual rapport that goes beyond the resume, as impressive as some resumes may be. I express appreciation to him for his leadership. He is a born teacher, a gifted teacher, and how fitting that a teacher is commissioner as well as being one of the Twelve.
And Stan Peterson is so special, stretching service over nearly three decades; able to be firm in the spirit, he can be a gentle, kind administrator. But likewise he can do hard things in a spiritually soft way. What a delight it has been to associate with him.
I feel enclosed in your love, brothers and sisters. As Stan has said, I really do feel as if I were coming home! This invitation to be with you has caused me to feel that way even more as I’ve been able to look at the faces of those of you in the Tabernacle. I’ve never lost my love of the classroom. It is a great privilege to be in a classroom, as you are, and I thank you for that service.
The most important words to be spoken by me tonight are words of appreciation to you, brothers and sisters, for the vital work you do in teaching so well in the realm of religious education. You know you could be in some factory making widgets, but instead you are doing something that really matters, and I commend you for that. I join Stan again in commending all of you who are Church-service volunteers who help to spread the gospel net and to “make it all happen.” Scattered as you are, including, for instance, a son of my internist, who is teaching seminary in Moscow. That far-flung gospel net has so often been accompanied by what CES has done in religious education. It’s been a marvelous symbiotic relationship.
My personal gratitude flows to you in so many ways, and one that you perhaps don’t think of often enough, because you are meek and modest, is the way in which you add to your students’ storehouses of memories, including their memories of doctrines taught and of the things of the Spirit. I thank you also for providing that added dimension to teaching, of which you are probably not conscious much of the time but you are providing it nevertheless. This is what I call the “take away” memories your students will have of you and your character.
My own memories of my teachers at Granite High Seminary, such as Brothers Moss, Merkley, Clayson, and Groberg are basically now distilled into what they were in terms of their character. Forgotten are the specific lesson menus, but I remember the chefs! It’s likely to be that way with you. You will be remembered for not only what you taught, but even more for what you are.
Ironically, this is related to one of the challenges that you face, which I mention more than in passing. Because seminary and institute teachers are generally effective. Please remember to give special deference to the more fundamental roles of family and of priesthood leaders who need to be recognized and to be sustained. Your role should never be a thing apart. In building up, therefore, the kingdom of God on the earth, the Church Educational System is an important but still junior partner!
Likewise, ever present before you, and you ponder this often and do things about it, is the shared need that we all have to reach “the lost sheep,” of whom there are literally tens of thousands. Granted, sometimes parents, priesthood leaders, and those in religious education must simply wait for them, like the prodigal who “came to himself” (Luke 15:17). Other times, however, and you’re a part of this, too, with the help of the Spirit, we can pry them sufficiently loose from the “cares of the world” that the light of the gospel begins to shine in their lives.
King Benjamin described so many diverted members of the Church in these words: “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” (Mosiah 5:13). A provocative, profound question. Yet there are still those, and they are many, who insist on living without God in the world, as Teresa of Avila said, they will sadly experience “no more than a night in a second class hotel” (as cited in “The Great Liberal Death Wish,” Imprimis [Hillsdale College, Michigan, May 1979]). You’ve come to help offer them better quarters. What a precious thing that is to do.
Frankly, so many of those thus estranged are not really wicked after all. They are not necessarily in transgression. But, they are in diversion. They are “anxiously engaged,” but in the cares and things of the world. They seek to belong. You see this acted out all the time, sometimes in strange ways, and yet they don’t quite sense how fleeting such belonging is when it is done in worldly ways!
More and more, therefore, we all need to stress—for ourselves and for those whom we teach—the vital connection with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The overall gift of the Holy Ghost truly is one of the greatest blessings available to members of the Church.
Gifts Come from the Holy Ghost
But actually, many gifts can come from Him. These are needed in every age and every dispensation, and certainly no less in the commotion-filled last days of the last dispensation. These gifts are vital at every stage of an individual’s life and in every situation of life. Almost all your students have received this gift, but in many, as you know, it lies dormant. Somewhat like the ancients who had received the gift, but knew it not! (see 3Nephi 9:20).
May I highlight only a few of those gifts usually less discussed. Consider the statement of Elder ParleyP. Pratt:
“The Holy Ghost ... quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates, and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings, and affections of our nature” (Key to the Science of Theology [1978],61).
What a promise! Yet it lies much too dormant in the lives of members of the Church, when it has that remarkable capacity to bless us.
No wonder we are instructed to “seek ye ... the best gifts” and their attendant joys (D&C 46:8). We are not limited to just one gift, though that is the minimum which to each is given. Since the realization of so many blessings does lie latent, Paul urged us to “Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee” (2Timothy 1:6).
In the Holy Ghost’s role in the Godhead, He “witnesses of the Father and the Son,” and further He actually “glorifies” Christ (2Nephi 31:18; italics added; see John 16:14). Ever relevant, this glorification of our Savior is so vital in the last days, when so many esteem Jesus, the Lord of the Universe, as “naught” (1Nephi 19:7). Therefore, at the center of the gifts of the Holy Ghost is His unique witnessing to us of Christ’s atoning act, history’s greatest emancipation: “To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world” (D&C 46:13).
There is such a difference, brothers and sisters, between the admiration and the adoration of Jesus.
The Holy Ghost Teaches the Weightier Matters
The Holy Ghost will teach us so many things, including providing a special perspective, which fascinates me, because He will teach us about “things as they really are, and things as they really will be” (see Jacob 4:13; D&C 39:6; 75:10). Only twice in all of scripture, as far as I know, is the adverb really used, and it occurs in the verse just given as an intensifier. This precious sense of proportion is needed daily! Not only does He reach mortals in their many niches, the Holy Spirit helps us search “all things, yea, the deep things of God,” meaning the fundamentals, not the complicated mysteries (1Corinthians 2:10). Ever remembering, therefore, that the “things of the Spirit of God ... are spiritually discerned” (v.14). The Holy Ghost is ready, if we are, to take us well beyond the superficial, so that we can learn of the truly weightier matters and the things of most worth.
The ways in which the Holy Ghost so teaches are many. More than once President MarionG. Romney instructed us: “I always know when I am speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost because I always learn something from what I’ve said” (cited in BoydK. Packer, Teach Ye Diligently [1975],304).
You’ve had that experience, haven’t you? Of going beyond yourselves, whether in a lesson, in a classroom, or in conversation, you say something in which indeed you yourself learn as well as the other recipient?
In such situations, not only is the substance conveyed significant, but so is our realization of what is happening! I hope we appreciate the implicit message as well as the substance that the Lord can and does work through us in ways which are recognizable by us, but the full significance of which may not be understood by us at the time.
The Holy Ghost Transmits Our Feelings
Another great gift of the Holy Ghost is that he will help us, as only He can, by transmitting our feelings, teachings, and testimonies to others—especially when we feel inadequate of ourselves, which is a fairly common experience for me. And you know the line about we cannot speak “the smallest part which [we] feel” (Alma 26:16). He will help us. And, in so many of life’s situations, brothers and sisters, we genuinely yearn, don’t we, to be able to “connect”—especially with those we love the most and those who play special roles in our lives. We will not always be effective enough to do that, but He will help us.
The Spirit can compensate for our frailties and lack of technique—not that technique doesn’t matter. But I am reminded of my own autobiographical insert at this point—of my Aaronic Priesthood advisor who was an English convert to the Church. A gray-haired man who would in our little classroom put his head on the top of his cane and speak uninterrupted for what seemed the entire length of the class. He’d apparently never heard of two-way communication. What I remember about Brother Alexander is that he really believed, and I was touched by the Spirit. And then by my home teaching senior companion—ward teaching in those days—Brother Wohler, who had a thick German accent. He too was a total stranger to two-way communication. But once again, the Spirit was transmitting. From those men, I knew that they knew and that they believed. It was a powerful thing. Nothing enhances like the Spirit. Nothing will leave the seismic spiritual readings on the souls of others like the Spirit.
The Holy Ghost can bless us by guiding our very prayers. Have not all of us on occasion puzzled beforehand over how to frame and focus our petitions? I have. Notice this reassurance from Paul: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with [sighings] which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).
For all of us who struggle to know how to focus our prayer at times, He will help us with our very prayers. We are, of course, mindful that we should pray often, as Elder Eyring said, as part of discipleship. But it isn’t an automatic thing that we know what we should pray for. We are not always certain as to that for which we should pray specifically!
The Holy Ghost can also help us in both the defining moments as well as in countering what might be called life’s gray zone of choices. Our decisions, after all, don’t usually involve choosing between whether we will rob a bank or hold family home evening! That’s an easy call. Much more difficult are those times when we must choose among good options, between “A” and “A1,” both of which are good and there isn’t time to do both. We need help in order to make those decisions, and the Holy Ghost will help us (see D&C 15:6; 16:4,6; 2Nephi 9:51).
The Holy Ghost Fills Our Souls with Joy
He is, as you know, called the Comforter. He “filleth with hope and perfect love” (Moroni 8:26). Consider how many mortals, including some of your students, are living without real hope, or without experiencing much genuine love.
Consider this next supernal gift: “I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy” (D&C 11:13). How many, outwardly compliant but inwardly joyless, need to have this joy? For some, greater joy in life’s seeming humdrum routineness would be such a blessing. He can do it; by ourselves we cannot.