"Here is a picture of my wife, LaDawn, and me. She was a teacher here when we were courting. Sometimes in conversation with friends someone will make a comment about a fact that is new to me. I might say, “I didn’t know that. That is very interesting.” My wife always delights in saying, “You didn’t know that? Why I learned that in the fifth grade!” The reason she says that is because I skipped the fifth grade. The teachers at my school moved six of us from the fourth grade to the sixth grade. During the year they realized their mistake and so I spent two years in the sixth grade but no time in the fifth grade—a serious gap in my education.
Now I mention kindergarten and fifth grade for this reason: too many people are trying to solve the serious complex problems of life with a sketchy, superficial, fifth grade understanding of gospel doctrine. This is not only unwise—it is dangerous. So here is the question: Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Getting an academic education is important––a high priority in life to be sure, but it is not even in the same ballpark as getting an education in gospel principles.
Don’t neglect your education in the things of the Spirit. Don’t you dare settle for a kindergarten or a fifth grade education in the doctrines and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You will be wise to devote a significant portion of time, energy and effort to a serious study of the doctrine and principles of the gospel so you can apply them with skill every day of your life. Some of you are strong in subjects like philosophy or mathematics but weak in subjects like faith and the Atonement. Watch your balance!
Don’t make life’s most important and defining decisions based on what you learned studying biology or Shakespeare, and don’t make them based on a shaky fifth grade foundation of spiritual knowledge.
We value all truth. Truth is truth. But some truth is more important than other truth. Understanding principles of chemistry and sociology is less important than understanding principles of honesty and repentance. Furthermore, the principles taught in the science of chemistry might change with new discoveries over time. The principles of repentance will not change. If you understand the science of medicine so well that you become one of the world’s greatest physicians but do not understand the principles of honesty and charity, you will not be happy. If you understand and live the principles of honesty and charity, even if you were a run-of-the-mill doctor or teacher, you have a good chance to be supremely happy.
Have you learned that answers to prayer usually come a piece at a time, line upon line, rather than all at once? Have you learned this so you do not get discouraged when you pray earnestly and the answers don’t seem to come? Have you learned that the Lord has His own timetable for answering? God’s clock and ours are rarely synchronized. The Lord says over and over in the scriptures that He will do things in his own due time.
“If I do not know the will of my Father, and what he requires of me in a certain transaction, if I ask Him to give me wisdom concerning any requirement in life, or in regard to my own course, ...or those I preside over, and get no answer from Him, and then do the very best that judgment will teach me, He is bound to…honor that transaction, and He will do so to all intents and purposes.”8
If you do your homework, study it out, and earnestly plead with the Lord for an answer and do not feel you have received it––go ahead with your best judgment and the Lord will either back up your decision or He will soon warn you that you are going down the wrong path. "
Elder Larry W. Gibbons
Second Quorum of the Seventy
