Rise Up is a show for the youth and young adults looking for answers and encouragement to the difficult and critical questions that some may face about the doctrines, teachings, and culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This episode is presented by Nick Galieti and uses portions of two devotionals from Patricia Holland, and Elder John H. Groberg, both given at BYU in 1989 and 1979 respectively.

What is your mission in life?

Some difficult questions about the Church arise from critics. While other difficult questions come from just living life. This week we approach the difficult question, “What is my mission in life?”

With this question comes several other, let’s call them “sub-questions,” that we often ask at the same time. “What job should I get?” “Where should I go to school?” “Is this a person I should date or marry?” Maybe even, “Is this Church true, or is the Book of Mormon true, and if so, then what?”

Because each individual is given the gift of agency, or the ability to spend the time we have been given in this life for what we choose, it would seem like a good idea that we use that agency in the best possible way. For that same reason, discovering and determining our mission and purpose in life is all the more intimidating.

I want to share with you some thoughts that I hope will reinforce the importance of finding our mission. Not because I want to make the question all the more intimidating, but because I think that the more we realize just how important the decision is, the more we will come to understand that because of this high priority, God has put in place all that is needed for us to discover our mission, but also to succeed in that mission. Knowing how important this is to God, may help us have more confidence to approach Him in prayer, knowing He is anxious to bless us with this knowledge.

As with the all the quotes that I share, I will leave you the link for to the full presentation for the posting of this episode at blog.fairmormon.org, so that you can spend time researching the main source, as well as the context in which the quote is given.

To start off, I want to share some parts of a presentation given by Sister Patricia Holland at a BYU devotional entitled Filling the Measure of Your Creation given back in 1989 when her husband, Jeffrey R. Holland was president of the University. She said the following:

All of us face those questions about our role, our purpose, our course in life—and we face them long after we are children. I visit with enough of you (and I remember our own university years well enough) to know that many of you, perhaps most of you, have occasions when you feel off-balance or defeated—at least temporarily. And we ask, ‘What will I be, when will I graduate, whom will I marry, what is my future, how will I make a living, can I make a contribution?”—in short, “What can I be?”

Take heart if you are still asking yourselves such questions, because we all do. I do. We should concern ourselves with our fundamental purposes in life. Surely every philosopher past and present agrees that, important as they are, food and shelter are not enough. We want to know what’s next. Where is the meaning? What is my purpose?

When asking these questions, I have found it extremely reassuring to remember that one of the most important and fundamental truths taught in the scriptures and in the temple is that “Every living thing shall fill the measure of its creation.”

Every one of us has been designed with a divine role and mission in mind. I believe that if our desires and works are directed toward what our heavenly parents have intended us to be, we will come to feel our part in their plan. We will recognize the “full measure of our creation,” and nothing will give us more holy peace.

I once read a wonderful analogy of the limitations our present perspective imposes on us. The message was that in the ongoing process of creation—our creation and the creation of all that surrounds us—our heavenly parents are preparing a lovely tapestry with exquisite colors and patterns and hues. They are doing so lovingly and carefully and masterfully. And each of us is playing a part—our part—in the creation of that magnificent, eternal piece of art.

But in doing so we have to remember that it is very difficult for us to assess our own contributions accurately. We see the rich burgundy of a neighboring thread and think, “That’s the color I want to be.” Then we admire yet another’s soft, restful blue or beige and think, “No, those are better colors than mine.” But in all of this we don’t see our work the way God sees it, nor do we realize that others are wishing they had our color or position or texture in the tapestry—even as we are longing for theirs.

Perhaps most important of all to remember is that through most of the creative period we are confined to the limited view of the underside of the tapestry where things can seem particularly jumbled and muddled and unclear. If nothing really makes very much sense from that point of view, it is because we are still in process and unfinished. But our heavenly parents have the view from the top, and one day we will know what they know—that every part of the artistic whole is equal in importance and balance and beauty. They know our purpose and potential, and they have given us the perfect chance to make the perfect contribution in this divine design.

This is where faith comes in: learning to trust God to guide our lives in such a way that we will actually get a to a point where our greatest potential is realized. While this may s