Always (President Eyring)

The Savior has used the word “always” in two settings that may have caused you to wonder. First, you promise to “always remember Him” when you partake of the sacrament. And second, He warns you to “pray always,” (3 Nephi 18:18).

You may have wondered, as have I, why He used the word “always,” given the nature of mortality, as its weighs upon us. You know from experience how hard it is to think of anything consciously all the time. Even in service to God, you will not be consciously praying always. So why does the Master exhort us to “pray always”?

I am not wise enough to know all of His purposes in giving us a covenant to always remember Him and in warning us to pray always lest we be overcome. But I know one. It is because He knows perfectly the powerful forces that influence us and also what it means to be human. He knows what it is like to have the cares of life press upon us.

I plead with you to do with determination the simple things that will move you forward spiritually. Start with remembering Him. You will remember what you know and what you love. The Savior gave us the scriptures, paid for by prophets at a price we cannot measure, so that we could know Him. Lose yourself in them. Decide now to read more, and more effectively than you have ever done before.

I promise you that you will feel the influence of the Holy Ghost touch your heart as you search the scriptures with new purpose and as you pray earnestly. From that, you will have the assurance that God lives, that He answers prayers, that Jesus is the living Christ, and that He loves you.

President Henry B. Eyring via Facebook 6.28.20