"How can we build a foundation of faith in Christ and His atonement as we undertake our educational and career aspirations in life? Allow me to share four suggestions that I have learned in my life’s journey," said Elder Benson E. Misalucha, Area Seventy, Philippines Area, at a recent devotional address at Brigham Young University–Hawaii.
Misalucha's four suggestions were simple: Keep earning our own witness, Follow the Lord's pattern, Learn so as to love others, and Count your blessings every day. For each point, Misalucha gave powerful examples of how these patterns affect our lives.
To keep earning our own witness, he noted, "President James E. Faust said it best when he said, '[This] is another great truth you… must learn. It is that everything has a price. There is a price to pay for success, fulfillment, accomplishment, and joy. There are no freebies. If you don't pay the price needed for success, you will pay the price of failure. Preparation, work, study, and service are required to achieve and find happiness. Disobedience and lack of preparation carry a terrible price tag' " (James E. Faust, "The Devil's Throat," Liahona, May 2003, 51–53).
His second suggestion was simple—"The patterns we follow in our lives take many forms – sometimes they are ideals we believe in, professions we love or persons we admire. These patterns influence our goals, decisions and actions. As followers of Christ, we need to be careful about the patterns we follow. For once we have received a witness of the truth of the everlasting gospel, we are to follow the Lord's patterns to build our foundation of faith in Christ. The Lord's patterns are all intended to keep us safe, happy and on the path back to our heavenly home."
In order to learn to love others, he stated, "Our love, like our knowledge, our memories and our service, is something that we can bring with us in the resurrection. For when we love, we focus our time and talents on that which truly matters most—the eternal life that the Son of God had promised us."
Finally, he stated that to count our blessings every day, we need to build our foundation of faith in Christ. In order to do that he noted, "We need to have thoughts and feelings of overwhelming gratitude to Him. Gratitude does not seem to be inborn in most of us and if we do feel it, it seems to be very short lived. I heard one psychologist trainer say: 'Gratitude is the shortest of all human emotions. It is presently clocked at 4.3 seconds.' "
To these four suggestions he stated, "I pray that we will build our foundation of faith in Christ as we keep earning our own witness, following the Lord's patterns, learning so as to love others and counting our blessings every day."
--Photo by Monique Saenz
Click here to view the full transcript of Elder Benson Misalucha's devotional