Leadership Often Requires Sacrifice

Joseph Smith likewise was a figure of loneliness. I have a great love for the boy who came out of the woods, who after that experience could never be the same again, who was berated and persecuted and looked down upon. Can you sense the pathos in these words of the boy Prophet?

… For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation. [JS—H 1:25.]

There are few more sorrowful pictures, not in our history anyway, than of the Prophet being rowed across the Mississippi River by Stephen Markham, knowing that his enemies were after his life, and then there came some of his own who accused him of running away. Hear his response:

If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of none to myself. ([History of the Church,] 6:549, June 1844.)

This has been the history of this Church, my young friends, and I hope we will never forget it. It came as a result of the position of leadership which was imposed upon us by the God of heaven who brought forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the declaration was made concerning the only true and living Church upon the face of the earth, we were immediately put in a position of loneliness, the loneliness of leadership from which we cannot shrink nor run away and which we must face up to with boldness and courage and ability. Our history is one of being driven, of being winnowed and peeled, or being persecuted and hounded. …

I go back to these words of Paul:

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; (2 Corinthians 4:8–9.)

I talked last night with the father of a missionary. He said, “I’ve just been talking with my son in another land. He is beaten; he is destroyed. He is lonely; he is afraid. What can I do to help him?”

I said, “How long has he been there?”

He said, “Three months.”

I said, “I guess that’s the experience of almost every missionary who has been there three months. There is scarcely a young man or woman who is called to go into the world in a position of great responsibility to represent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who does not feel much of the time, I am sure, in the early months of his or her mission, the terrible loneliness of that responsibility. But he also comes to know, as he works in the service of the Lord, the sweet and marvelous companionship of the Holy Spirit which softens and takes from him that feeling of loneliness.”

It is likewise with the convert. I have been thinking this morning of a friend of mine whom I knew when I was on a mission in London thirty-six years ago. I remember his coming to our apartment through the rain of the night. He knocked at the door and I invited him in.

He said, “I’ve got to talk with someone. I’m all alone. I’m undone.”

And I said, “What’s your problem?”

He said, “When I joined the Church a little less than a year ago, my father told me to get out of his home and never come back, and I’ve never been back.”

He continued, “A few months later the cricket club of which I was a member read me off its list, barred me from membership, the boys with whom I had grown up and with whom I had been so close and friendly.”

Then he said, “Last month my boss fired me because I was a member of this Church and I have been unable to get another job and I have had to go on the dole.

“And last night the girl with whom I have gone for a year and a half said she would never marry me because I’m a Mormon.”

I said, “If this has cost you so much, why don’t you leave the Church and go back to your father’s home, and to your cricket club, and to the job that meant so much to you, and to the girl you think you love?”

He said nothing for what seemed to be a long time. Then, putting his head down in his hands, he sobbed and sobbed. Finally he looked up through his tears and said, “I couldn’t do that. I know this is true, and if it were to cost me my life I could never give it up.” He picked up his wet cap and walked to the door and out into the rain, alone and trembling and fearful, but resolute. As I watched him, I thought of the loneliness of conscience, the loneliness of testimony, the loneliness of faith, and the strength and comfort of the Spirit of God.

I would like to conclude by saying to you here today, you young men and women who are in this great congregation, this is your lot. Oh, you are all together here now. You are all of one kind, you are all of one mind. But you are training to go out into the world where you are not going to have about you ten thousand, twenty thousand, twenty-five thousand others like you. You will feel the loneliness of your faith.

It is not easy, for instance, to be virtuous when all about you there are those who scoff at virtue.

It is not easy to be honest when all about you there are those who are interested only in making “a fast buck.”

It is not always easy to be temperate when all about you there are those who scoff at sobriety.

It is not easy to be industrious when all about you there are those who do not believe in the value of work.

It is not easy to be a man of integrity when all about you there are those who will forsake principle for expediency.

I would like to say to you here today, my brethren and sisters, there is loneliness—but a man of your kind has to live with his conscience. A man has to live with his principles. A man has to live with his convictions. A man has to live with his testimony. Unless he does so, he is miserable—dreadfully miserable. And while there may be thorns, while there may be disappointment, while there may be trouble and travail, heartache and heartbreak, and desperate loneliness, there will be peace and comfort and strength.

I like these great words of the Lord given to those who would go out and teach this gospel.

I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up. (D&C 84:88.)

I think that is a promise to each of us. I believe it; I know it. I bear testimony of its truth to you this day.

God bless you, my dear young friends, you of the noble birthright, you of the covenant, you who are the greatest hope of this generation—young men and women of ability and conscience, of leadership and tremendous potential.

God bless you to walk fearlessly even though you walk in loneliness, and to know in your hearts that peace which comes of squaring one’s life with principle, that “peace which passeth all understanding,” I humbly pray, as I leave with you my witness and my testimony of the divinity of this holy work. And as a servant of the Lord, I invoke upon you every joy as you go forward in your lives to rich and marvelously fruitful experience, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.