As a young man I often felt troubled when I heard older members testify, “I know the church is true” because I didn’t know. Perhaps I questioned their sincerity as I silently questioned, “How can you possibly know it’s true?” I often pondered, “Do I believe just because I was born in this church? If so, I could have been born in any church and would just believe, but I can’t do that. I must know what is true.”

Rainbow taken from the Bountiful Temple

I hesitated to bear my testimony as a teenager because I couldn’t say, “I know”. I prayed and went to church and loved the scriptures, but I always wondered. I felt the Lord wanted me to serve a mission and received a call to teach the gospel in Japan. When I arrived there in one of my first interviews with my mission president I said, “President Ikeda, I don’t know if I have a testimony.” He looked at me and said, as best I can remember, “Elder Harper, of course you have a testimony. It is what brought you here and it shows in what you do.” I had many spiritual experiences leading up to that point and felt warmth in his words. I decided I would testify of what I do know, and the Spirit moved me.

Some five years later I found myself back in Japan with a young family as a newly graduated engineer. We had a marvelous ward in Kawanishi that would all stay after church and share food since so many came from far. While we were sharing our families and food a young woman who was investigating the church told me (in Japanese, of course), “I just don’t know if this is true.” I responded, “Oh that is a wonderful place to be. I know that feeling, but I have found in my own life that increasingly it isn’t a question of what truth is, but a question of am I true to what I know. Don’t worry. In the Lord’s time, the Spirit will tell you in your heart and mind what is true. Rather consider, when the Spirit tells me what to do, will I do it?”

I was so pleased that about a month later, this young sister chose to get baptized. She felt this was the Lord’s will and had faith to act on that feeling.

Many blessings are contingent upon us acting on what we know. I never would have known the joy of missionary work without teaching the gospel. I didn’t know the joy of being a father until I got a first taste holding a newborn. We won’t receive the joy of knowing the Lord unless we have patience and faith to love and serve him. As it says in Ether 12:6, “… ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith”.

And so, if the journey seems long, remember, “…surely shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive… I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.” (D&C 8:1-2)  First be true to what you know.

Let me relate an experience with a drug enforcement officer that illustrates how justification can distort our honest view of ourselves. For if we bend, the light we reflect bends.

As newlyweds living in Logan, Utah, we were invited to hear an officer speak about drugs at a relief society activity. The officer began discussing problems youth were facing and an emerging gang influence, but the relief society president stopped him and asked him to talk about prescription drug abuse instead. He quickly said, “Oh, we have a real problem with that.” He told of standing on a doorstep with an older woman, trying to explain that her copying of a prescription that she drove around to fill at multiple pharmacies was not normal behavior. It was actually prescription fraud and a sign of addiction. He continued that this was not an isolated incident. It was a troubling part of his job to convince people there was a problem. As he talked, heads started to sag around the room, as the expected comfortable focus on ‘struggling youth’ turned to an introspective question, ‘Master, is it I?’

The natural result of sin in any degree is that we see things through the distorting lens of justification. Straight lines can appear curved and vice versa. The question of “How can I be completely clean?” is replace by false statements like “It isn’t that bad” or “This doesn’t really affect me.” Sins of omission often are couched in, “I’m too tired” or “They don’t really need my help”. Addiction starts in a cloud of denial which is why things typically get really bad before one seeks help.

Step 1 in addiction recovery is honesty, but it is also the first step for anyone to turn their life to our Savior. Honest self-assessment is critical to our growth. President Uchtdorf properly identifies its importance in two wonderful talks “Lord Is It I?” and “On Being Genuine”.

President Uchtdorf stated, “… none of us likes to admit when we are drifting off the right course. Often we try to avoid looking deeply into our souls and confronting our weaknesses, limitations, and fears. Consequently, when we do examine our lives, we look through the filter of biases, excuses, and stories we tell ourselves in order to justify unworthy thoughts and actions.”

I am blessed to work with men who have finally become honest enough to admit their problem and reach out for help. They often have broken hearts that are ready to be healed and filled. I promise you that if you reach out, there is a hand that will receive you and never let go, as long as you keep reaching. The atonement can reclaim us from any addiction but it starts here, with honesty.

When I was a boy, we would go out to see sheep shearing on my grandfather’s ranch located in a dry and remote area Northeast of Promontory Point on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. One year I brought my trumpet and my sister and I decided we would climb a nearby hill overlooking the camp where I could wind my trumpet long and loud. I was naïve to think it would carry clearly over the long distance to the camp in the open air. Even at full volume, it sounded empty and hollow.

Promontory bordering the Great Salt Lake

After we were done, we climbed higher. This being spring, the normally hot and dry desert peak was pleasantly green and refreshing. After some distance we heard a faint bleating sound and soon found it came from a little lamb that had been abandoned on the hillside. Our priorities suddenly changed from a vain show to a rescue mission. We looked for signs of a mother sheep somewhere nearby and finding none we carried the lamb down the hill and ended up taking it home with us. It was one of quite a few bum lambs my grandfather gave us that I would clumsily help nourish with bottles of milk as I grew up in a small town in Northern Utah. We saved many of them and raised them in our back pasture.

One lamb wouldn’t take the milk, despite my best effort to open its mouth to give it a taste of the life saving liquid. It was getting very weak just before we had to leave it in the care of our neighbor for a week while we out of town. When we got back, I was overjoyed to see the lamb had not only recovered, it was full of vitality, now excitedly wriggling its tail in anticipation of feeding. I wondered how I could learn to nurture like my neighbor. I was grateful to him.

When the Savior taught us to leave the 99 safely enfolded sheep to find the one that was lost, he didn’t explain why the sheep was lost or justify why it should be saved. In his love for his sheep, he was simply concerned that the sheep be found and nourished.

A dear friend of mine reminded me that sheep don’t typically wander because they are rebellious or spiteful. They wander because they are hungry. The further we wander from God, family and the warm hands of friends the more hungry we become. Let us remember to feed the flock close at hand, but also to remember that the very people who are hardest to love, especially those who struggle with addiction or wonder if they belong, need love the most.

So, perhaps if I am not too busy making a vain display of how good I am… I will have time to seek out brothers and sisters who need healing and hope. This is the Lord’s work. It is our work.

I cannot begin to express the powerful emotions I felt in our ARP (Addiction Recovery Program) meeting last night.

We missionaries contribute at the end of the meeting after the others have shared, so I was last but I could hardly speak. There was a powerful healing spirit that permeated the room. Here were broken hearts and contrite spirits. Every participant had put a sincere offering on the altar in coming there and sharing for their fellows. As I looked into the faces of these men who mean so much to me, I began by paraphrasing a scripture that was given to me in the temple,

“And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along.” (D&C 78:18)

I told my brothers there that I consider them my dear friends and that if the Savior wasn’t there with us, then I didn’t know where else he would be. Did he not say, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt 18:20). I related how my mission president had told us at the time of his release that he couldn’t help but look out on us and smile, not because we were where we needed to be, but because he knew we were headed the right direction.

We have had many successes and many more setbacks. It isn’t as important where we are, but where we are going.

I love this call and I love those I serve (Alma 29:9-10):

9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

10 And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me.