Dallin H. Oaks | Be of Good Cheer | Oct 2020 General Conference | Faith To Act

Be of Good Cheer
By President Dallin H. Oaks

First Counselor in the First Presidency

Our unshakable faith in the doctrine of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ guides our steps and gives us joy.

In the final days of His mortal life, Jesus Christ told His Apostles of the persecutions and hardships they would suffer.1 He concluded with this great assurance: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). That is the Savior’s message to all of our Heavenly Father’s children. That is the ultimate good news for each of us in our mortal lives.

“Be of good cheer” was also a needed assurance in the world into which the resurrected Christ sent His Apostles. “We are troubled on every side,” the Apostle Paul later told the Corinthians, “yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).

One by one
Two thousand years later we are also “troubled on every side,” and we also need that same message not to despair but to be of good cheer. The Lord has special love and concern for His precious daughters. He knows of your wants, your needs, and your fears. The Lord is all powerful. Trust Him.

The Prophet Joseph Smith was taught that “the works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught” (Doctrine and Covenants 3:1). To His struggling children, the Lord gave these great assurances:

“Behold, this is the promise of the Lord unto you, O ye my servants.

“Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God” (Doctrine and Covenants 68:5–6).

The Lord stands near us, and He has said:

“What I say unto one I say unto all, be of good cheer, little children; for I am in your midst, and I have not forsaken you” (Doctrine and Covenants 61:36).

“For after much tribulation come the blessings” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:4).

Sisters, I testify that these promises, given in the midst of persecutions and personal tragedies, apply to each of you in your troubling circumstances today. They are precious and remind each of us to be of good cheer and to have joy in the fulness of the gospel as we press forward through the challenges of mortality.

Tribulation and challenges are the common experiences of mortality. Opposition is an essential part of the divine plan for helping us grow,2 and in the midst of that process, we have God’s assurance that, in the long view of eternity, opposition will not be allowed to overcome us. With His help and our faithfulness and endurance, we will prevail. Like the mortal life of which they are a part, all tribulations are temporary. In the controversies that preceded a disastrous war, United States president Abraham Lincoln wisely reminded his audience of the ancient wisdom that “this, too, shall pass away.”3

As you know, the mortal adversities of which I speak—which make it difficult to be of good cheer—sometimes come to us in common with many others, like the millions now struggling through some of the many devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, in the United States millions are suffering through a season of enmity and contention that always seems to accompany presidential elections but this time is the most severe many of the oldest of us can ever remember.

On a personal basis, each of us struggles individually with some of the many adversities of mortality, such as poverty, racism, ill health, job losses or disappointments, wayward children, bad marriages or no marriages, and the effects of sin—our own or others’.

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