Elder Holland’s Answer to Prayer That Led Him Down the Wrong Path

When making decisions, God expects us to pray, trust, and be believing and then not give up, panic, or “”jump ship”” when something doesn’t seem to be going right. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shares a personal experience that reminds us to always trust God and the direction He gives us. (via Mormon Channel on YouTube)

Elder Holland’s Most Impactful Unanswered Prayer

There are times when the only way to get from A to C is by way of B.

Having grown up in Southern Utah and enjoying all the wonders and beauties of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, I wanted to introduce my son to that, and I wanted to show him places that I had seen and enjoyed when I was his age, so his mother packed a little lunch for us and we took his grandfather’s pickup truck and headed South onto what we call the Old Arizona Strip.

Noting that the Sun was going down we decided we better get back. But we came back to a particular fork in the road, really the only one, that at that point was absolutely unrecognizable. I asked my son to pray about which road to take, and he felt strongly that we should go to the right, and I did as well, and we went to the right and it was a dead end.

We went four or five or six hundred yards and it was an absolute dead-end, clearly the wrong road. We turned around, came back out, took the other road and clearly the road to the left was the correct road.

A Prayer that Led to the Right Road

Somewhere along the way Matt said, “Dad, why did we feel, after praying about it, that the right road was the proper one to take, the correct one to take, and it wasn’t?”

And I said, “I think that the Lord, His wish for us there, and his answer to our prayer was to get us on the right road as quickly as possible with some reassurance, with some understanding, that we were on the right road and we didn’t have to worry about it, and in this case, the easiest way to do that was to let us go 400 yards or 500 yards on the wrong road, and very quickly know, without a doubt, that it was the wrong road, and therefore with equal certainty with equal conviction that the other one was the right road.”

I have absolute certain knowledge, perfect knowledge, that God loves us. He is good, He is our Father, and He expects us to pray, and trust, and be believing, and not give up, and not panic, and not retreat, and not jump ship, when something doesn’t seem to be going just right.

We stay in, we keep working, we keep believing, keep trusting, following that same path and we will live to fall in His arms and feel His embrace and hear Him say, “I told you that it’d be okay, I told you it would be all right.”