I love this talk that Pres. Henry B. Eyring gave at BYU Idaho on January 25, 2005, which was only a month after the huge tsunami struck. He speaks about the Lord guiding us to places of safety:
"Fear shall come upon all people. But you and I know that the Lord has prepared places of safety to which He is eager to guide us. I think of that often. A few days ago, I heard two accounts of God leading His children to safety on the coast of Thailand when that monstrous tsunami wave struck.
One was of people who accepted His apparently routine invitation to a Church meeting on a Sunday. The meeting was called by ordinary men who hold the priesthood of God. The meeting place was on higher ground, away from the coast. The people who gathered with the Saints were spared from physical death, while the places on the coast where they would have been were destroyed. As they were spared physical death, they were being strengthened against spiritual temptation and the wave of eternal tragedy it will bring to those who are disobedient.
The other account I heard was related to me by a Latter-day Saint who was led to safety by the Holy Ghost. He checked into a hotel on the ocean front in Thailand the day before the wave struck. He walked out on the beach. He felt uneasy. He went back to his hotel determined to check out. The hotel staff, I think worried that he didn’t like the hotel, pressed him for a reason. They only reluctantly agreed to his leaving. He moved to another hotel, away from the beach. It was on higher ground. Because of that, he not only survived but stayed to serve the survivors.
The Lord is anxious to lead us to the safety of higher ground, away from the path of physical and spiritual danger. His upward path will require us to climb. My mother used to say to me when I complained that things were hard, “If you are on the right path, it will always be uphill.” And as the world becomes darker and more dangerous, we must keep climbing. It will be our choice whether or not to move up or to stay where we are. But the Lord will invite and guide us upward by the direction of the Holy Ghost, which He sends to His leaders and to His people who will receive it...."
He said that when we feel the prompting of the Holy Ghost, we must act promptly, like Nephi the prophet did in Helaman 10.
"Just as pondering the scriptures invites the companionship of the Holy Ghost, so does doing the things we have been told to do and doing them promptly. We are promised that the scriptures and the Holy Ghost will tell us all things that we should do. When we go and do what we have been told and do it the best we can, we qualify for more instructions of what to do. If we do not act, we will not receive further instructions. My hero in this is the prophet Nephi, described in the book of Helaman. He is my example for “Go and do.”
And behold, now it came to pass that when the Lord had spoken these words unto Nephi, he did stop and did not go unto his own house, but did return unto the multitudes who were scattered about upon the face of the land, and began to declare unto them the word of the Lord which had been spoken unto him, concerning their destruction if they did not repent (Helaman 10:12).
His immediate obedience brought him the companionship of the Holy Ghost, just as it will for you and me. Here is the account:
The power of God was with him, and they could not take him to cast him into prison, for he was taken by the Spirit and conveyed away out of the midst of them."
Nephi received miraculous protection from the people who wanted to harm him.
And I especially love Pres. Eyring's closing paragraph. I want to hear the promptings which can protect me in these dangerous latter days.
"I testify to you that the Holy Ghost can speak to your heart and your mind. And you can train yourselves to know that voice in such a way that you might move away from the beach as that man did in Thailand, or might be impressed to go to a sacrament meeting when you are on vacation, as people did in Thailand. They could have easily said, “Well, we are on vacation.” But no, they went to where the Lord wanted them to go.
You will be the ones who will be able to hear the voice of the Spirit, and it will bless you in the times ahead. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
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