Preparedness: Line upon Line, Precept upon Precept

By Elder Kevin G. Brown

Area Seventy

I was 12 years old when Gilbert, a category five hurricane, hit Jamaica.¹ I remember being in a church meeting a few months earlier when a message from President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994), then prophet of the Church and the beloved prophet of my childhood, invited the Saints to prepare for emergencies through water and food storage, staying out of debt and saving as much as possible. In my family, trying to have food storage seemed impossible, and for a 12-year-old boy, it just did not seem important. Furthermore, at the time the message came, there was no immediate need to heed that counsel.

On the morning the hurricane was expected to arrive, I went to school. It was raining, and when I got to the school gate it was locked with the security guard telling all students to go home. His question to all of us was, “Didn’t you watch the news?” It was my first hurricane experience and one I would never forget.

That night, throughout the turbulence of the hurricane with howling winds and crashing roofs, my family prayed, held each other and cried. I remember we had visitors staying with us from Canada and the woman crying into her husband’s arms asking why they came to Jamaica to die.

The light of the next morning made it clear that Hurricane Gilbert was the worst hurricane Jamaica had experienced in a long time. It wreaked havoc on our country and many households would be without electricity, water and basic food supplies for weeks. In my home, we had made minimal preparations and were among the many wishing we could get bread, ice, meat, or crackers. I longed for a cold drink of water or a nice slice of warm bread. I wondered if we would ever stop eating corned beef and tinned mackerel. We had many dark nights because candles were scarce, and the places to buy lamp oil were like battlefields of war.

I share this story from my childhood because I heard my grandmother and many members of the Church testify in the weeks following this terrible disaster that they remembered hearing the letter from the prophet read in sacrament meeting to prepare, and they all expressed regret that they did not. Even though this was a difficult lesson to learn, it was also testimony building because all in attendance declared their sure knowledge that we were being led by prophets and apostles who knew how to guide us. For a boy of 12 years old who had just experienced something unforgettable, these testimonies entered my heart, and I decided then to heed the warnings of prophets.

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught:

“Some Church members opine that emergency plans and supplies, food storage, and 72-hour kits must not be important anymore because the Brethren have not spoken recently and extensively about these and related topics in general conference. But repeated admonitions to prepare have been proclaimed by leaders of the Church for decades. The consistency of prophetic counsel over time creates a powerful concert of clarity and a warning volume far louder than solo performances can ever produce.”²

The Lord declared “if [we] are prepared [we] shall not fear.”³ This is both an invitation and a promise. It is a declaration by the Lord that if we do our part, He will protect us and at the very least we will be able to act without panic, fear, and doubt.

There are several ways we can be prepared for the future, line upon line and precept upon precept⁴.

Spiritual preparedness: building testimony, making and keeping sacred covenants, temple attendance, daily spiritual habits such as scripture study, prayer, repentance and service.
Physical preparedness: educational pursuits, emergency backpack, home food and water storage, home gardening, establishing savings, debt reduction, and building close family relationships.

Brothers and sisters, please understand that we are not expected to accomplish each area of preparation overnight. In fact, the journey to accomplish each area of preparedness is just as important as the destination itself. The Lord invited us not to run faster than we have strength and that we do all things in wisdom and in order.⁵

Looking back, I have recognized that the mindset that I had as a child of not having enough to do what we were being asked to do was an excuse. The Lord invites us to prepare every needful thing.⁶ In that simple invitation nothing should be left out. We prepare a little bit of every needful thing until we have a house that can be described as a house of God. With my responsibilities as a father, provider and priesthood holder I took ten years to accomplish the goal of a first degree which as a standard would take four years. However, I accomplished the goal, and that was all right.

Brother Ashton Garcia of the Port of Spain Trinidad Stake shared his experience of preparing line upon line. He said, when his wife was serving as Relief Society president, she received personal revelation after reading the words of President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) to start a food storage.⁷ They learned valuable lessons of following the prophet, starting a kitchen garden, storing fruits and vegetables managing a budget and using resources wisely. He shared that “As we moved forward in faith and followed the Lord’s commandments, the Lord guided us with revelation line upon line on how to act and not be acted upon. We received peace from the Spirit by knowing we were prepared and keeping the commandments.”

As we prepare every needful thing, we will have the joy of knowing that “to Him, our direction is ever more important than our speed.”⁸ Brothers and sisters, stay on the path of preparedness. Do not give up on the process. I testify that the Lord loves effort⁹ as taught by our beloved prophet President Russell M. Nelson who has also invited us to prepare now to survive spiritually in the coming days.¹⁰ The Lord, our Redeemer, prepared for the hardest of duties and responsibilities known to man, and as He prepared, He grew “in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”¹¹