Touching lives with love, humility, and hope

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the October 1995 Conference.

It was easy to choose a talk to write about for this session. I loved every part of Elder Eyring's talk "To Touch a Life With Faith." This was one of Elder Eyring's first talks as an apostle. I'm sure he thought a lot about who it might touch and who might need to hear it. I'm sure he considered the fact that people all over the world might listen to his words. But I wonder if he ever thought it would still be blessing and touching people who read his words twenty-six years later? That seems so cool to me.

On to the talk! You know how Elder Eyring is—always addressing the best version of your hypothetical self ("I am sure you have pondered, as I have…")—and urging you on in that encouraging way of his. Sometimes his assumptions about my best self are a little…uh…optimistic, but in this talk he really did have me figured out:

[This man's] heartache was one most of us have felt over someone we cared about and could not seem to reach. And that heartache will lead you to ponder and pray for the answer to this question: How can I touch a life with faith?

Yes! As a matter of fact I have pondered and prayed over that very question! Tell me more, Elder Eyring (I say to myself). Obligingly, he continues:

You can help with your example. If you love them because you feel God’s love for them, they will feel that. If you are meek and humble because you feel your dependence on God, they will sense that, too.

In addition to your example, you can teach the word of God to them in a way that is more likely to give them a desire to repent and to try to live it. They may think they have heard preaching enough. But they must do more than hear the word of God; they must plant it in their hearts by trying it.

You can make that more likely if you talk with them about it in a way that helps them feel how much God loves them and how much they need God.

I love how specific he gets here, and the way he thinks about the scriptures (all these pieces of advice he gives come from scriptural examples). He seems to have a gift of taking even small scriptural phrases and unfolding them into larger helpful principles. This part rang very true to me:

Life has in it moments of challenge that will bring even the people most hardened to spiritual things to say to themselves, “Isn’t there more than this?” If you have been a constant friend, if you have proved your love by service and so become trusted, they may turn to you with that question. When they do, you can say, knowing that their hearts are prepared, “Yes, there is, and I can tell you where it is and what you can do to find it.”

And then he sets forth some of his perceptive principles:

For all those you serve, wherever they may be in the tests of life, the way you nurture will be much the same. You will love them. You will encourage them as they choose to be humble. You will present the word of God to them in the way most likely to lead to their choosing to exercise enough faith to repent and thus see that there is more that God would have them do. And that will help them endure in faith.

Now, your responsibility to touch lives might seem overwhelming. You can take heart that you were called by the Savior. You have the same promise he gave those he called at the beginning of his earthly ministry. He called first humble men, uneducated, with less schooling and less gospel knowledge than the most recently ordained of you may have. But listen to what he said, and know that it applies to you:

“And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.

“And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

“And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.”

He will make you a fisher of men, however inadequate you may feel now. It won’t be done by a mysterious process. It will be the natural result of your choosing to follow him.

Ah! I love this so much! He just makes it sound so simple and straightforward; something anyone can do! I get overwhelmed so easily with the thought of all I need to do and be for those I love, but Elder Eyring says so kindly (while simultaneously giving a sort of Stern Poke of Expectation at any inclination I might have to feel helpless or daunted):

Just think about what you must do to be a fisher of men, to touch lives with faith for him. You will need to love the people you serve. You will need to be humble and full of hope. You will need to have the Holy Ghost as your companion to know when to speak and what to say and how to testify.

But all of that will come naturally, in time, from the covenants you make and keep as you follow him.

He is so certain that it will all turn out okay! I love him for it. And the process he sets forth seemed clear and easy enough (and he repeated it often enough) that after I read this talk, I kept repeating to myself reassuringly during some difficult conversations that came up: "Love, humility, hope." That's how to influence a life with faith, and those are things I can do, or at least try for! Especially if I have Elder Eyring's promise that they will be enough to make a difference.

He ends hopefullly, as he began (and I am not overlooking the fact that he follows his own advice in this talk, addressing his listeners with love, humility, and hope!):

You may not have seen that mighty change in yourself yet. But it will come as you continue to follow him. You can trust that he will qualify you as his servant, to assist him in touching lives with faith to bring to pass the eternal life of man. And you will find satisfaction in that service beyond your fondest dreams.