Earlier this year, a General Authority Seventy and Area Seventy came to my stake to reorganize our stake presidency. They met with bishops, high councilors and others to see whom the Lord wanted to be the new stake president.
One of these good men who was interviewed but not called to the new presidency later shared some of his experience in a talk in sacrament meeting. He said that in his interview, he joked with the two visiting authorities that he is “a back-row guy” in his ward.
Elder Kevin G. Brown, the Area Seventy, then leaned forward, looked him in the eyes and asked him, “What if God asked you to come forward?”
This question has been running through my mind ever since — along with another question I heard at a stake conference in Hawaii: “What would you do if you were not afraid?”
Sister Haylie Chase of the Young Women general advisory council asked that question of the Kahului Hawaii West Stake on the island of Maui in February.
Six months earlier, the deadly Maui wildfires had deeply affected stake members. They lost friends, loved ones, homes and businesses.
And Sister Chase felt prompted to talk to them about fear.
She told them about how growing up, she seemed to always be afraid of new things, challenges, food and people. In a real way, she felt controlled by fear.
Her mother had displayed on the wall Doctrine and Covenants 6:34-36: “Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail. … Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”
And her mother would ask her, “What would you do if you were not afraid?”
Sister Chase said she has learned that Jesus Christ is more powerful than fear and the Lord is more powerful than the adversary.
“Jesus Christ is the center of our focus. As we choose Him as our center, there is nothing in this world we need to be afraid of,” Sister Chase said.
As she talked to the Maui Latter-day Saints, Sister Chase invited them to ponder what fear — and faith — meant for them.
“What would you do if you were not afraid? Would you turn to the Savior? Would you trust Him more? Would you follow Him? Make covenants with Him such as baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, receiving your endowment and being sealed in the temple? Would you love and serve more as the Savior did?”
Answering this invitation can help with spiritual momentum on the covenant path. Moving forward with faith over fear can lead someone to be able to answer “yes” when the Lord asks them to come forward.
In his April 2020 address titled “Go Forward in Faith,” President Russell M. Nelson conferred upon the Saints an apostolic blessing of “peace and increasing faith in the Lord.”
He said that as people begin to truly hear, hearken to and heed the words of the Savior, “I promise that decreased fear and increased faith will follow.”
Then, in October 2020, he invited all to “let God prevail” — noting “it takes both faith and courage” to do so. It takes persistent work to repent, develop personal habits of study, and to seek and respond to personal revelation.
And the promised blessing is beautiful.
“My dear brothers and sisters, as you choose to let God prevail in your lives, you will experience for yourselves that our God is ‘a God of miracles,’” President Nelson said.
Miracles like the increased capacity and strength that comes to those who make and keep covenants with God. Sister J. Anette Dennis, first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency, spoke about that during the worldwide Relief Society devotional in March.
“God’s priesthood power will amplify our spiritual gifts and talents, it will give us strength beyond our own,” Sister Dennis said.
Like the good man in my stake who was asked, “What if God asked you to come forward?” we all can ponder this question in connection with the second question: “What would you do if you were not afraid?”
God asks His children “to come forward” — to say yes to a calling, to lead, to minister, to serve, to make covenants with Him — and we can do so with both faith and courage, knowing we are built upon the rock of the Savior and that our God is “a God of miracles.”
— Mary Richards is a reporter for the Church News.
