And They Sought to See Jesus Who He Was
I witness that Jesus lives, that He knows us, and that He has the power to heal, to transform, and to forgive.
Brothers, sisters, and friends, in 2013 my wife, Laurel, and I were called to serve as mission leaders in the Czech/Slovak Mission. Our four children served with us.1 We were blessed as a family with brilliant missionaries and by the remarkable Czech and Slovak Saints. We love them.
As our family entered the mission field, something Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught went with us. In a talk titled “The Great Commandment,” Elder Wirthlin asked, “Do you love the Lord?” His counsel to those of us who would answer yes was simple and profound: “Spend time with Him. Meditate on His words. Take His yoke upon you. Seek to understand and obey.”2 Elder Wirthlin then promised transformative blessings to those willing to give time and place to Jesus Christ.3
We took Elder Wirthlin’s counsel and promise to heart. Together with our missionaries, we spent extended time with Jesus, studying Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from the New Testament and 3 Nephi from the Book of Mormon. At the end of every missionary meeting, we found ourselves back in what we referred to as the “Five Gospels,”4 reading, discussing, considering, and learning about Jesus.
For me, for Laurel, and for our missionaries, spending time with Jesus in the scriptures changed everything. We gained a deeper appreciation for who He was and what was important to Him. Together we considered how He taught, what He taught, the ways He showed love, what He did to bless and serve, His miracles, how He responded to betrayal, what He did with difficult human emotions, His titles and names, how He listened, how He resolved conflict, the world He lived in, His parables, how He encouraged unity and kindness, His capacity to forgive and to heal, His sermons, His prayers, His atoning sacrifice, His Resurrection, His gospel.
We often felt like the “[short] of stature” Zacchaeus running to climb a sycamore tree as Jesus passed through Jericho because, as Luke described it, we “sought to see Jesus who he was.”5 It was not Jesus as we wanted or wished Him to be, but rather Jesus as He really was and is.6 Just as Elder Wirthlin had promised, we learned in a very real way that “the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation. It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities.”7
Those were special days. We came to believe that “with God nothing shall be impossible.”8 Sacred afternoons in Prague, Bratislava, or Brno, experiencing the power and reality of Jesus, continue to resonate in all of our lives.
For Elder McConkie’s complete talk, click below. . . . ‘And They Sought to See Jesus Who He Was’.
