Good Morning or Good Afternoon or Good Evening,
this post should take four minutes to seven minutes to read from start to finish.
This post focuses on a BYU (Brigham Young University) Devotional in March 1999, and it is called "Pure Love" by Brother Eugene H. Bramhall. This post is part two, and I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the Devotional.
Brother Bramall has mentioned the following;
"... It seems to me, however, that these accounts and one or two others demonstrate the essential point that our obligation to love ourselves and our neighbors is second only to our obligation to love God and that learning to love each other, to care for each other, is a learning process - the outcome of which is that we learn better to love God.
It seems to me that, in its ideal form, true love represents a perfecting process by which we learn to love well and truly and we develop the virtues of humility, charity, patience, judgment, selflessness, and a hundred other virtues that are recognized, polished, merged, and developed into a character able to withstand the refiner’s fire.
We start this process by loving God and then develop that love through service, sacrifice, gratitude, and giving. ...
Thus it seems to me that our Father in Heaven has given us the first and great commandment to love him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength, and then he told us how to do that: by learning to love one another.
I will close these remarks with two more simple examples, one contemporary and the other drawn from an experience of about 50 years ago.
One morning as I met with the bishops of the BYU 13th Stake, over which I presided as president at the time, I was moved to talk of the lost sheep as described in the teachings of the Savior. I reminded this group of bishops that Jesus had spoken often of sheep as a metaphor for all of his children.
At various times the Savior had told his apostles that “my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27), and he enjoined his apostles always to “feed my sheep” (John 21:16, 17; D&C 112:14). I told these men that in the Savior’s wonderful and moving sermon about the good Samaritan, he made it absolutely clear that we are all his sheep, even those who are despised and disregarded by others.
I told them that in the Old Testament we are instructed in the clearest way possible that we are in fact our brother’s keeper, and I reminded them that Peter, following the Savior’s death and resurrection, had perceived “that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).
Thus I think the reference to “foreigners” in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is particularly important. In any event, on that particular Sunday morning, these bishops accepted my challenge to seek out those within their wards who needed special help and encouragement to find, in effect, the lost sheep among them.
Later that day, Christopher Germann, one of the younger bishops in the 13th Stake, was sitting in a regional conference next to a young woman who was sitting alone and who appeared unusually quiet and pensive. She looked just like you in your quiet moments. But there was something about her that drew his attention.
She was not in his ward, and as he described the event to me later, he had hesitated to speak to her. He felt that he might be intruding on a particularly private moment. But the Spirit was powerful, and I still remember exactly his question to her: “How has your day been?”
She was surprised, but he introduced himself as a bishop, and she gratefully thanked him for asking, pouring her heart out to him in a way that reinforced the teachings of that morning. Now I will ask you whether you have someone to whom you might address the same question: “How has your day been?”
And if someone asks you that question, are you ready to respond and to be moved by their spirit to another place in your life? I will tell you that right now there are many here who feel alone, frightened, and inadequate and who need the love and support that one or more of you can and should give.
They need that special, careful, driven-by-the-Spirit attention that will bless both you as the giver and your new friend as well. Please reflect upon the experience of Bishop Germann as you remember this hour.
Finally, I will close by telling you of another young man whom I knew well, one whose spiritual life may well have been saved by three college students just like you. At the time they were strangers, but because they were willing to extend themselves, they became critical to the spiritual life of this young student.
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| "PURE LOVE" |
Here is the story: A young LDS student attended a large university in the western part of the United States. It was not his choice to do so, and he was very lonesome and very far from home, friends, and lifelong associations. Indeed, he did not know a soul, either at his university or, for that matter, in the entire state. Miserable, lonesome, and feeling lost, he invested himself in his schoolwork, ignoring his mother’s constant requests that he attend a local student ward.
Weeks went by, and then even a couple of months without any effort on his part at contacting the local LDS student group. His misery deepened, but he was no more inclined to attend church than he had been on that first Sunday. He was not doing anything wrong; it’s just that he was not doing anything really right, either.
Today, if asked, he would tell you that his actions were unexplainable, though at the time they seemed absolutely natural. He was slowly dissolving in self-pity, and he would not let anyone or any influence change his life. And so it was late one Friday afternoon that Leo, Dean, and Skip knocked on his apartment door.
Each was attending the same university, and each was involved in the local ward. They had come to invite this young miserable student to a ward outing. In the face of their unrelenting encouragement and remembering the gentle proddings of his mother, this young student finally consented to attend the ward outing, where, to his surprise, he had a good time in spite of himself.
He continued his activity in the ward, met the girl he would later marry, quickly found his spiritual roots again, formed lifetime friendships with Leo, Dean, and Skip, and went on to a lifetime of service in the Church.
The year was 1950, the university was the University of California at Berkeley, and I was the miserable freshman student. The girl I met, who then had very pretty blonde hair, became my wife. The debt I owe her and others can never be sufficiently repaid.
The spirit of love and caring that I felt at that initial meeting with my dear friends has been the spirit that has carried me from that day to this. I cannot deny it, nor should you. It is the spirit that makes all of us one, the spirit that brings us all together not as strangers, not as foreigners, but as brothers and sisters in this ever-broadening kingdom of God.
In closing, perhaps I should apologize for this very personal anecdote. However, I have recited it here because I believe it illustrates, as much as anything, the importance and timeless relevance of our Savior’s teachings. Whatever the circumstances, remember always his admonition: “If ye are not one ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27). ..."
If you would like to read whole Devotional either now or in your own time, here is the link below.
Stay Tuned until next time.
