Let us do all we can to invest in our potential—earthly and divine—so we may be ready for all God has in store for us.
Photo by Inakidel Olmo
Undoubtedly, God has commanded us to educate ourselves. Obtaining education from good sources, including but not limited to a traditional college education, allows us to maintain a more God-like perspective and to better fulfill God’s plan for us. Eva Witesman urges women to take their education seriously in her BYU devotional, “Women and Education: A Future Only God Could See for You.”
Witesman observes that it is common for women to forego an education to focus on maintaining a home and family. As women, our future is full of opportunities that we cannot currently imagine; the best way to prepare to respond to the Lord’s callings and promptings is to pursue an education, which “has its own spiritual value regardless of whether we ever enter the paid labor force.” Education does more than make a person marketable; education helps develop our spirits and our spiritual gifts, qualities that we will take with us to the next stage of God’s plan.
The Lord understands that our timelines are personal and that our capacities vary. He knows that we can’t do everything at once, and that doesn’t disappoint him. Witesman explains, “nonlinear educational paths may sometimes be considered nontraditional, but they are not nonessential.” The Lord asks that we do our best to fulfill his commandments. In the grand scheme of his plan, we should not have to choose between education and family. In the Lord’s plan, they go hand in hand.
Read more about why it is important for women to educate themselves in Eva Witesman’s speech “Women and Education: A Future Only God Could See for You.”
Source: BYU Speeches
—Tori Hamilton, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY JUAN RAMOS
Find more insights
Read Russell M. Nelson’s talk “A Plea to My Sisters” for more on why God needs strong women.
Learn more about the importance of education for women in Dallin H. Oaks’s address “Women and Education.”
Read about God’s commandment to educate ourselves in “Education is a Commandment.”