Trusting God—A Lesson I Keep Relearning
God knew what I needed to hear at general conference more than I did.
Two weeks prior to general conference, I sat down with a friend to talk about my worries and stresses about school, my lack of dating life, how tired I am of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how I have the hardest time being submissive to God and His plan for my life.
Trusting God has honestly been a rough skill for me to learn. The biggest challenge of my life has been knowing when to take charge and when to let God lead, especially when it comes to looking for someone to date and eventually marry. Because I tend to be an independent person, I just want to take everything into my own hands, but sometimes God’s message for me is to simply be patient and trust Him.
Typically, as general conference approaches, I try to think of a question I want answered so I can not only pay more attention to the messages but also open myself up to receive personal revelation. This time around, I couldn’t think of any questions I wanted to ask Heavenly Father. All my emotions and stresses were kind of wordless clouds floating around in my mind that were hard to put a finger on. So in my prayer the night before conference, all I told Him was, “You know my heart. You know what I need to hear, even if I don’t.”
And I left it at that.
The next day, there were some amazing talks—many that I felt answered the prayers of the world and many people I know. Then President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, got up to speak in the women’s session later that evening, and it was a talk meant for me, directed from God. Just a few simple words that were an answer to my prayer:
“The Lord is all powerful. Trust Him.”1
When President Oaks said those words, it wasn’t his voice I heard—it was Heavenly Father’s. It resonated in my soul, and I knew in that moment that He had truly heard my prayer.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
God keeps telling me to trust Him, and that seems to be something that I need to keep relearning. This time He taught me through His modern-day prophets, reminding me to use the word trust as a verb.
I’m learning that trusting God is more than passively sitting and waiting for Him to make things happen in my life—it’s doing things to keep the Spirit with me and to keep the powers of Satan at bay so God can work in my life.
I’m so grateful for the opportunity to use conference and the teachings of prophets and apostles as a means to help me along the path back to my Heavenly Father. And I’m so grateful for personal revelation as it continues to strengthen my testimony that God not only is real but also knows me, loves me, and hears me.