This is the first time I have heard an address from Elder Dube. I have got to say, I loved this talk and the way it was delivered. He tells a story from his childhood in which he and his mother are working in the fields. He recalls, “It was late in the morning, the sun was up, and we had been hoeing for what I thought to be a very long time. I stopped to look back at what we had accomplished and said to my mother, ‘Look at all we have done!’” His mother doesn’t respond right away. After repeating himself, his mother replied, “Edward, never look back. Look ahead at what we still have to do.” This is a great lesson! We spend so much time in our lives, at least as Americans, looking at our past. We fall into the trap of either beating up on ourselves for things or we give ourselves too much credit.
Elder Dube quoted Elder Jeffrey R. Holland who said, “The past is to be learned from but not lived in.” That is so hard. Trying to live in the present and not dwell on the past has been something I have struggled with. We remember the past so that we, hopefully, don’t make the same mistakes again.
The other side of that is that we can’t spend all of time thinking about what may or may not happen. We can’t consume our time worrying about whether things will work out the way they should. Elder Dube said that we must “look forward and believe”. We have to have faith that the Lord knows what is best for us and, and things will work out.