Elder Wilson to BYU Students: “We Too Await the Return of the King”
Contributed By Ryan Morgenegg, Church News staff writer
Elder Larry Y. Wilson of the Seventy speaks during a campus devotional held in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University on December 1.
Article Highlights
- We each must choose what part we will play in the fight between good and evil.
- The Lord’s servants are always humble.
- Many people forget they are God’s servant and imagine God is their servant.
“Each of us faces a choice. We can choose to see ourselves as the Lord’s servants and humbly seek to know what He wants us to be doing with the talents and time He has given us. As such, we can seek to enlarge His kingdom and prepare it for His return.” —Elder Larry Y. Wilson of the Seventy
In a day of uncertainty where many question if faith has a place in life, remember that “the triumph comes at the last day. We too await the return of a King,” Elder Larry Y. Wilson of the Seventy said during a campus devotional held in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University on December 1.
“Each of us faces a choice,” he said. “We can choose to see ourselves as the Lord’s servants and humbly seek to know what He wants us to be doing with the talents and time He has given us. As such, we can seek to enlarge His kingdom and prepare it for His return.”
Using the works of two Christian authors, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, Elder Wilson gave several examples of how their stories point to Christ. “In both Narnia and Middle Earth, hope was in the ultimate return of the king,” Elder Wilson said. “You too find yourself in a world of conflict between good and evil. You too must decide what part you will play.”
He cautioned listeners to not fall into the trap of thinking that life is all about them. Elder Wilson explained that people forget they are God’s servant and imagine that God is their servant. They think that Christ came to make all of their dreams come true.
“In the Lewis and Tolkien stories, the good guys are always humble about the lives they find themselves living,” he said. “They know that they are part of a larger story, and they seek to carry out that part with faithful hearts.”
The quality of faith in Lewis’s and Tolkien’s works is not like the undemanding spirituality of the present day, Elder Wilson said. “It seems that no one wants to be labeled judgmental today, so our world has posited gods for itself that never judge and are never stern,” Elder Wilson said. “They only affirm us and never deny us of anything we want.”
Elder Wilson said the enemy of the soul wants to entice God’s children to take strange paths and “to devote your precious life not to building God’s kingdom, but to any other cause.” He then encouraged listeners to make a choice and “to use your time in the cause that matters most, the one that leads to the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.”
Elder Larry Y. Wilson of the Seventy speaks during a campus devotional held in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University on December 1. Photo by BYU video screen capture.
