Didactic Academic

Buzzer and I did some chemistry together last night; he had a conflict with a Young Men church activity and 'too much homework.' I was a bit surprised at the vehemence in my voice when I told him to put the Lord first. Though it was a small and arguably unimportant matter, I considered the principle. The outcome was a reminiscing of my personal academic standards of study, and how they tacitly aligned with my personal standards of obedience.

I won't extricate my obedience thoughts here, only that if one consciously chooses to prioritize the Lord's commandments as the ultimate motivation, miracles occur. The miracle may not birth in forms of higher grades or stellar academic excellence, though those may indeed follow. Miracles of one's ability to designate obedience in other, more difficult, areas of their life will follow. One's confirmation of excellence in the Lord's kingdom will lend confidence to all important matters of their life. Miracles of bolstered faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, His redeeming sacrifice, and His enacted Plan of Salvation will grow. I am the first to advocate supreme excellence and application to scholarly pursuits, but a quote by the 1966 President of Brigham Young University, Pres. Ernest W. Wilkinson, affirms my thoughts,

"I hope this school can never be totally described in the terms of other universities, no matter how celebrated. Fundamentally our roots spring from Palmyra, rather than Cambridge...If most institutions of higher learning aspire to be only communities of scholars, we are privileged to be also a congregation of disciples...

My concern that men of letter and science at B.Y.U be men of God before anything else must not be construed to support the substitution of rectitude rather than academic competence...Our academic training must be as impeccable as our lives (BYU faculty address, 12 Sept 1966, pp. 5-6)."