Elder Corbridge Encourages Students to Seek What Matters Most

Contributed By By Marianne Holman, Church News staff writer

  • 2 July 2013

Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge of the Seventy speaks during a campus devotional at BYU–Idaho on June 18, 2013.  Photo by Taylor Davenport, BYU–Idaho.

Article Highlights

  • Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge explained that our time is put to the most use when we are careful and wise about what we want and what we do.
  • Things that “matter most” include the Atonement of Jesus Christ, hearing and following the word of the Lord, developing a godly character, and making a difference in the lives of others.
  • Elder Corbridge said to seek after those things that are most important.

“There is precious little in this life that matters very much, but there are a few things that are monumentally important, and they are equally available to everyone” —Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge of the Seventy

Never in the history of the world has the instruction to pursue the ultimate treasures of eternal value been more critical or more timely than today, Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge of the Seventy said during a campus devotional at BYU–Idaho on June 18.

Speaking in the BYU–Idaho Center, Elder Corbridge asked students the question, “What do you want?”

“I don’t mean what should you want. Rather, what do you really want?” he asked. “What do you think about most? What most influences the decisions you make? What are your predominate desires?”

Sharing an experience he had while attending a meeting with President Thomas S. Monson, Elder Corbridge said that the prophet talked specifically about the young adults of the Church. President Monson expressed both his admiration and concern, and speaking about the times in which young adults live today, he borrowed these familiar lines penned by Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“True to the charge the prophet of the Lord gave to me, I would like to help you understand how your time is the best of times depending on what you want and what you do,” Elder Corbridge said. “Our day is unlike any time before. We have so much more, so much more of both good and evil than any day before. From one extreme to the other, we live in the dispensation of the fulness of times both as to evil as well as for good.”

Unlike any other time, “everything is before us,” Elder Corbridge said, recognizing that the full spectrum from the depths of darkness and evil to supernal splendor, brilliance, beauty, magnificence, grandeur, glory, and exaltation and everything in between are available. With that accessibility, never in the history of the world has the instruction of the Savior to seek after “treasures in heaven”—things of eternal value—been so important, he said.

“Never in the history of the world has this instruction to pursue the ultimate treasures of eternal value been more critical or more timely than it is today,” he said. “Never has it been easier to get lost in little things. Never has there been a time in which more has been available—more goods, more gadgets, events, shows, choices, activities, alternatives, and especially more information and more misinformation than ever before. In such a flood of information and things, the challenge is not only to sift between good and evil, rather sort between the mundane and the monumental as well.”

Elder Corbridge shared some of the things that “matter most.” Included on that list are the Atonement of Jesus Christ, hearing and following the word of the Lord, developing a godly character, and making a difference in the lives of others.

“There is precious little in this life that matters very much, but there are a few things that are monumentally important, and they are equally available to everyone,” he said. “Seek after those things, and your time will be the best of times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, the season of light, and the spring of hope. Everything is before you. All you have to do is choose the best.”

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