Elder and Sister Bruce C. Hafen, Emeritus General Authority Seventy
Tuesday devotional, July 11, 2017
Elder Hafen:
- I have an overwhelming sense of privilege being here. This a sanctified, holy place.
- Your sacrifices help edify the ground on which we walk. You are of great worth to your God.
- I have a young grandson who thought MTC was “empty sea”. We were grateful to explain the difference to him.
- I want to talk about the process of learning to know what faith is.
- Alma 32 got me through my mission. You can’t know for sure of the gospel’s truthfulness until you try the process found in this chapter.
- Faith must overcome ‘withering’ challenges. Faith is not blind.
- There is a gap between the Ideal and the Real.
- We will run into challenges. For example, Nephi and Laban, Peter and his denial, gay marriage, same sex attraction.
- Three ways to deal with the gap between real and ideal: 1) Simply don’t see it; go through life with an optimistic, relaxed attitude, clinging to the ideal and ignoring the real. This is a naive and untenable approach to life. This person knows answers but not questions, and lives in blissful innocence. 2) See things only as they really are and never consider ‘ideals’. This type of person successfully grapples with challenges by denying that there is an Ideal. He or she knows the questions but not the answers. 3) See both the real and the ideal with both eyes and heart. This person gives the Lord the benefit of the doubt regarding tough questions, obedience becomes a quest and not an annoyance, this is an open minded belief system.
- How to deal with tough internet questions.
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