“Choose to Let God Prevail,” For the Strength of Youth, Aug. 2022.
Choose to Let God Prevail
Three choices you can make will invite more of God’s power into your life.
Illustrations by Adam Howling
On our mortal journey, the Lord invites us to take Him as our Guide. He loves us more and knows us better than we love or know ourselves. He gives us scriptures, prophets, prayer, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and other ways to receive His guidance.
Trust Him. Let Him direct your paths (see Proverbs 3:5–6). As you do this, you let God prevail in your life. This is what President Russell M. Nelson is urging us to do (see “Let God Prevail,” Oct. 2020 general conference [Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2020, 92–95]).
Here are three choices that can help you let God prevail in your life.
1. Choose to Believe
Belief is a choice. Faith includes your desire and your willingness to act. When you choose faith, you see and live in a different way—in God’s way.
Feel your happiness and joy grow and deepen as you choose to believe and live with faith on God’s covenant path.
When you study and pray to make your best decisions, you will often receive guidance, protection, or paths forward that you wouldn’t have thought of or expected.
The Lord will open wonderful opportunities for you. Revelation from the Holy Ghost is felt in your mind and heart. These are often described as warm and comfortable feelings. They prompt you to do only what is good and right.
Please do not think others have spiritual experiences and you do not. Please be patient with God and yourself. Spiritual experiences come line upon line, experience by experience.
Each week as you make and renew covenants through the ordinance of the sacrament, please reflect and remember Jesus Christ. Remember with gratitude your efforts to serve God and those around you. As you exercise faith and effort, I promise your desire and choice to believe will bless you and those you love all your life.
By choosing to believe, you take an important step toward letting God prevail in your life.
2. Choose to Be Good
We feel glad when we make good decisions.
Sometimes, you need courage to stand by your friends. Other times you may need courage to stand a little apart—not to judge them or feel superior but to choose the right by doing something different.
Please remember: Real friends don’t ask us to watch things, do things, or eat, drink, or use things that will hurt us or others. Best friends help each other become their best.
Be a real friend and you will find or develop real friendships. Be a true, trustworthy friend who helps those around you love the Lord and live His restored gospel. Your true friends may be few or many, but years from now you and they will be glad you are strong in the gospel together.
May I share something I’ve learned about choosing friends? Watch what makes them laugh. What makes us laugh says a lot about us.
Find those who laugh with, who do not laugh at; who include others and draw the circle bigger, not smaller; who are kind and do not bully or make fun of others in person or online, especially those with physical or mental challenges or those who are new or from other countries or backgrounds.
Be lighthearted, not light-minded. Lighthearted means wholesome, good humor—lots of it. In contrast, light-minded can include making fun of sacred things, using bad language, or doing edgy things that appeal to the world.
As Doctrine and Covenants 88:40 teaches, like things attract each other. Be the friend you want others to be to you. Look for friends who help you become what you truly want to be.
The choice to be good and let God prevail in your life includes changing and coming closer to God even when we make mistakes, which we all do. If you have feelings of guilt or unworthiness, please let your bishop, leaders, and others who love you help. Let God and our community of Saints support and encourage you if you face challenges or uncertainties. Always, always God stands by you, with you. Even if you wander, He calls, ready to welcome you back. With God, there is no point of no return.
We let God prevail when we choose to be good.
3. Choose to “Be Still”
Heavenly Father lovingly promises, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
It takes conscious effort to slow down and “be still.” It takes spiritual openness and humility to “know that [God is] God.” Sometimes slowing down in things that matter less helps us find the things that matter most.
Learn to see God’s hand in His creations.
Look for goodness and meaning in divine relationships—kindness, service, delight, good fun.
On occasion, please slow down, unplug, and connect in spiritual ways with heaven and those around you.
Please, “be still, and know that [He is] God.” Let God prevail in your life.
He Seeks to Bless Us
The Lord is kind and gracious. As we do our best, He enables us to do more than we otherwise could.
The Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes (see Matthew 6; 14). Similarly, He magnifies what we offer and makes it more than we can imagine.
Heavenly Father loves you and wants only what is best for you. Let Him be your Guide on your path through life. When you let God prevail in your life, you let Him multiply the blessings He desires to give you. This brings enduring joy to Him and you.