“Seek the Spirit,” Ensign, May 1980, 50
Seek the Spirit
My beloved brethren, I have enjoyed this meeting very much. I have two talks here, and I have been thinking about which one I had better give. Both of them are too long, and we have already been well fed in this priesthood meeting.
It’s a great thing to hold the priesthood of God, to represent him in the world. I am very grateful for his mercies unto me—the great opportunities that he has given me in my life to serve him. From the time I was a child, I have had a priesthood responsibility that I have tried to fulfill, and I want to express my appreciation to the Lord in the hearing of all of you brethren here tonight; I want him to know that I am grateful for the opportunities I have had in my life, for my ancestors on both my paternal and maternal side.
I have had association with the General Authorities now for about forty years, serving with them, and I have enjoyed my labors very much. I can bear witness to the righteousness of the men with whom I have labored. It’s a great thing to labor with men like President Kimball and President Tanner. They are men without guile. They are men who do Herculean tasks, who labor far beyond their normal strength and who are held up and prospered by the power of the Lord that rests upon them. I am grateful for my opportunity of laboring with them, and I am grateful for the power that I have felt here tonight in these talks that have been given so well and with so much spirit.
I want to leave you my testimony and express my desire to remain faithful all the days of my life. I pray to the Lord for discernment that I can enjoy the promptings of the Spirit. There are many scriptures that are very dear to me, but one that has been perhaps as useful to me as any other scripture I can remember is the statement of the Lord that “the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit.
“And every one that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father.
“And the Father teacheth him of the covenant [of the gospel]” (D&C 84:46–48).
Try to live, brethren, so that you can have the Spirit with you in all your activities. Pray for the spirit of discernment that you may hear the promptings of the Spirit and understand them and then pray for courage to do them, to follow the guidance of the Spirit. This is a great era of the world’s history in which to live. We are living in the dispensation of the fulness of times.
We are moving into the time spoken of by the Savior that will try men’s souls. We are God’s anointed priesthood. There is no doubt about that, and he expects us to be true and faithful and show the way to the world to escape the destruction that will certainly come upon the wicked. And our responsibility is to live lives that will preach the gospel, as well as to quote the scriptures as we are taught. We must live so that men seeing us will know that we are living by the principles of eternal life.
I love you and want to serve you all I can as long as I live. I want to be worthy to stand with my brethren of the General Authorities and my brethren, laymen in the Church. I don’t think all the good people in the Church are General Authorities. I think your struggles, your service, and your daily lives are a witness which the Lord will accept and bless you for. I bear you this witness and pray that the Lord will bless every man and boy who holds the priesthood, that we will magnify our callings and receive the rewards of faithful servants. And I ask this blessing upon all of you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, amen.