Our journey to return to our heavenly home is not aimless. God has provided us with several gifts, including scriptures, prophets, and personal revelation, to help us return to him.
Every New Year’s, my family watches The Lord of the Rings. I’ve always loved the sweeping story, not just for its battles and adventures, but for how the journey of Frodo, the protagonist, mirrors our own. He didn’t make it to Mordor alone. An elf’s light, his dependable sword, and the Fellowship’s loyalty carried him through both shadow and triumph. His path was dangerous, but as he chose to use his gifts, he was never abandoned. Our journey through life is no different.
In the address “Your Wonderful Journey Home” by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, we are reminded that our lives—meant to prepare us to return to our heavenly home—are not meant to be unfocused, lonely, or impossible. President Uchtdorf teaches: “He didn’t send you on this journey only to wander aimlessly on your own. He wants you to come home to Him.”
Photo by Dylan Chan
Just as Frodo received powerful gifts, our Father in Heaven has prepared several divine gifts to aid us on our journey home, including scriptures, prophets and apostles, and personal revelation. Through these gifts, we find peace, direction, and stability. The scriptures can calm our hearts in moments of doubt. Prophets and apostles offer guidance when choices feel overwhelming. Personal revelation can illuminate our steps as we move forward. Each of these is a priceless gift given to us during this mortal journey back to our Heavenly Father. However, like Frodo, we must choose to use what has been given to us. Left unopened and unused, these gifts cannot strengthen or guide us.
Most importantly, these three gifts cannot be separated from the greatest gift of all: our Savior, Jesus Christ. The strength and guidance we experience when using God’s gifts ultimately stem from his Son. The scriptures testify of him. He leads the prophets and apostles. Through his name, we seek personal revelation. Having walked the path of every soul who has ever lived, he knows the way home and has given us the gifts we need to help us get there.
Let us resolve to treasure and use these divine gifts more fully. In doing so, we will walk with greater confidence on this wondrous journey home—an adventure more epic than any tale and a homecoming more glorious than any story ever told.
Learn more about the messages we can pull from these three gifts in Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s address: Your Wonderful Journey Home.
Source: General Conference
—Elizabeth Reynolds, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY AMIN ALIZADEH
Find more insights
Discover more about making decisions using these three gifts in Allan F. Packer’s devotional “Finding Your Way.”
Read and watch “Cairns on the Path of Mortality,” J. Kelly Flanagan’s devotional about the helpful markers on the path of mortality.
This is such a great talk, I’m glad you’re highlighting it! I think the reminder that we don’t have to live our lives alone is a really good message.