President Holland teaches that Jesus Christ showed what it means to submit to the Father's will, no matter the cost. This difficult lesson of obedience is one we must all learn.

This speech was given on January 17, 1989.

Read the speech here:
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Learn more about Jeffrey R. Holland here:
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Jeffrey R. Holland was president of Brigham Young University when he and his wife, Patricia T. Holland, gave this devotional address on 17 January 1989.

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"Part of the additional meaning I now see in this commandment [to fill the measure of our creation] is that every element of creation has its own purpose and performance. 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." - Sister Holland

"We come to a university, at least in part, to cultivate self-reliance, to cultivate independence, to learn to think and act for ourselves. Didn’t Christ himself say, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32)? Such freedom is exactly what universities are about, especially this one. We try very hard here to unshackle you from the bondage of ignorance and the captivity of wrong opinions. We want you to be strong and to have the most enlightened intelligence possible. We want you to be powerful and high-principled free agents.

So how do we speak of such spiritual freedom and intellectual independence in one breath only to plead with you to be submissive and very dependent in the next breath? We do so because no amount of university education, or any other kind of desirable and civilizing experience in this world, will help us at the moment of our confrontation with Christ if we have not been able—and are not then able—to yield, yield all that we are, all that we have, and all that we ever hope to have to the Father and the Son.

The path to a complete Christian education passes through the Garden of Gethsemane, and we will learn there if we haven’t learned it before that our Father will have no other gods before him—even (or especially) if that would-be god is our self." - President Holland