BYU graduates told to seek the Promised Land
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PROVO, UTAH
Drawing from examples of journeys to the Promised Land recorded in the Old Testament, Book of Mormon and the lives of early Church members, Elder L. Whitney Clayton spoke to BYU graduates about the journey they will experience as they move toward their own personal promised land.
The commencement ceremony was held Aug. 12 in the Marriott Center on the BYU campus for the 2,375 summer graduates. President Cecil O. Samuelson, of the Seventy and president of Brigham Young University, conducted and spoke at the ceremony.
"You who graduate today stand on your own river bank or ocean shore, on the edge of your futures," said Elder Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy. "You look off into the distant years before you, searching the horizon for your own promised land that flows with milk and honey. In a sense, we all do, every day."
Although the future can at times look like a "Land of Promise without much promise," Elder Clayton told graduates to look to the future with hope.
"The Promised Land, your Promised Land, really is there," he said. "If you follow the admonition of the Lord you really will inhabit that rich land and harvest its blessings, milk, honey and all."
Elder Clayton spoke of five observations to remember while on the journey to one's land of promise.
The Promised Land today is a way of life, not a place like it was in the Old Testament times.
"Blessed in all things usually does not mean blessed with all things," he said. "[It] means we will have sufficient resources for our needs and even some of our desires. But more important, it means that as a result of our sincere striving and earnest efforts, we will be blessed."
The Promised Land usually isn't a place; it is found wherever an individual is at the moment.
"While we naturally look out to the horizon and plan for and work toward a future day … it is found in the way we live each day, confront each challenge and move forward with faith," Elder Clayton said. "There is no such thing as finally arriving anywhere in life, for life extends on ahead of us with a constantly receding horizon, offering us both new opportunities and new trials."
No matter how little the season, individuals should act like they will be on this land for years, he said.
"We sink our roots by getting involved, making friends, seeking opportunity for service, accepting and then magnifying callings, attending the temple and joining in community efforts," he said. "Sending our roots deep will enrich our experience and bless others. …
"Our promised lands may and probably will change from time to time, and occasionally very abruptly. … We have never been promised that our promised lands would be trouble free. Thus the need to be deeply rooted or, as the Savior put it, to be built upon a rock."
There will always be something of the miraculous in individuals' journeys to their promised lands.
"Sometimes that miracle may be just that you got there at all, and you arrived sweating and weary and feeling that you pulled the handcart alone through the heat of the day across the whole of the prairie," he said. "We should recognize Heaven's gracious hand in seeing us through challenges as we seek our promised lands."
The geographic center of the Promised Land is a loving home, especially in marriage, Elder Clayton said.
"Its opportunities for love, growth, education, refining and service are without compare. Still, good marriages require real work. The most difficult adversaries ever to appear on any Promised Land's horizon, enemies like pride, personal weaknesses and bad habits, must be vanquished for marriage to prosper."
Although the path may not always be smooth, Elder Clayton said, the preparations made at BYU will help as individuals journey to the Promised Land.
"Today you cross a modern Red Sea or River Jordan, as you graduate from BYU and move on," he said. "No generation has been better trained or more richly prepared for its future."
President Samuelson spoke to the graduates about the importance of optimism.
"We live in an age of uncertainty and considerable challenges that can be very distressing should we allow them to be so," President Samuelson said. But, regardless of difficult economic times and other challenges facing societies today, graduates have reason to stay optimistic, he said.
"I believe that with all of our problems, difficulties and uncertainties we have the best reasons for optimism regarding the things of greatest importance," he said. "In this I do not discount the ambiguities, disappointments or dilemmas we all face, including those yet to come."
President Samuelson also spoke of the important skills graduates have developed through an education.
"The most important skill you have acquired at BYU is likely your understanding of how to learn, because that is a talent or capacity that is transferable to virtually every topic and to every situation," he said. "You have learned to learn 'by study and also by faith' and must remember that this pattern of effort and rigorous scholarship must be continually combined with equally intensive and serious faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in your Heavenly Father's plan for you and for all His children.
"If you keep these principles and truths clearly in focus and in your top priorities as you leave this phase of your learning, then you will be successful whether you are going on for further education and training, entering the world of employment or focusing your energies primarily on your homes and families."
Also speaking Thursday were Chris Feinauer, BYU Alumni Association president and graduate Shannon Stimpson. Elder Paul B. Johnson and Elder Jose A. Teixeira of the Seventy also attended.
