(Click here for complete text of Elder Holland's devotional remarks.)
PROVO UTAH
Citing the Savior's admonition to "remember Lot's wife" as contained in the second-shortest verse of the Scriptures (Luke 17:32), Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve described faith as building on the past but never longing to stay there.
"Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of you, and that Christ is the 'high priest of good things to come,' he said, citing the writing of the Apostle Paul.
Elder Holland spoke at the devotional assembly Jan. 13 at Brigham Young University, where he served as president from 1980 to 1989.
He referenced the story from Genesis, where Lot and his family fled at daybreak from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot's wife ignored God's command to "look not behind thee" and, upon looking back, was turned into a pillar of salt.
"It isn't just that she looked back — she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future," he said. "That, apparently, was at least part of her sin."
Counseling his audience to not dwell on days now gone or yearn vainly for yesterday, Elder Holland reminded "the past is to be learned from but not lived in," drawing upon experiences as one looks ahead.
"We remember that faith is always pointed toward the future — faith always has to do with blessing and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives," he said. "So a more theological way to talk about Lot's wife is to say she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord's ability to give her something better than she had. Apparently, she thought — fatally as it turned out — that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind."
Using the Apostle Paul as an example of one who looked back on his early years of privilege and education as vastly less meaningful than his later years of service and preaching, Elder Holland quoted from Paul's epistle to the Philippians.
"This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).
Such an attitude leads to a universal, timeless lesson, Elder Holland said, bemoaning that too many people fail to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life.
"That is not good. It is not Christian," he said. "It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes — our own or other people's — is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to cease and desist."
Mindful that individuals are sometimes hardest on themselves than with others, Elder Holland asked that in all situations — including relationships, marriages and personal lives — ancient wounds not be reopened, the same wounds the Savior died trying to heal.
"Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change — and improve," he said. "Is that faith? Yes! It is hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all it is charity, the pure love of Christ.
Elder Holland encouraged listeners to forgive and then do that which is harder to do — forget. And to forget again when it comes to mind again, remembering just enough to avoid repeating the mistake.
"Dismiss the destructive and keep dismissing it, until the beauty of the Atonement of Christ has revealed to you your bright future, and the bright future of your family and your friends and your neighbors.
"God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go."
Elder Holland recalled a time in 1963 when he and his wife, Patricia, were newlywed BYU students struggling with a little apartment, too little money, too many working hours and lots of anxieties. Walking together on campus, he wondered aloud if they should give up and return home without the planned undergraduate and graduate education and instead find a good job and get started on seeking a good living.
"In my best re-enactment of Lot's wife I said, in effect, 'Let's go back. Let's go home. There future holds nothing hopeful for us.' "
He said Sister Holland grabbed him by his lapels with a stern response: "We are not going back. We are not going home. The future holds everything hopeful for us."
Later as university president and now as a Church leader, Elder Holland said he has seen in his mind's eye student couples and individuals struggling with similar worries — about the future, the new year, the new semester, a new major or a new romance.
"Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant," he added, "and live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness, trust and divine love transform your life today, tomorrow and forever."
