“Be prepared, you will be asked, ‘Are you a Mormon?’ How will you reply? Are you asleep or are you true blue through and through… This is the Lord’s kingdom. This is His work. And we are building for eternity.” This was the counsel of David A. Lewis, vice president of construction and facilities management at BYU–Hawaii, during his devotional address Tuesday, November 20, 2012. His talk, “Time to Build,” focused on structuring our lives in accordance with the Lord’s will in order to build eternal homes and families.
Lewis, with his experience in construction shared six principles of building that we can apply to our own lives: quality, budgeting, scheduling, aloha spirit, sustainability, and hope. “As we place in context the mission of BYU–Hawaii and the Learn-Lead-Build model, these six principles can be used not only to build the buildings we study and live in, but also the most important structures of our life: the building of our marriages, families, communities, businesses, governments and the Church.”
Addressing the principle of budgeting, Lewis taught, “The Lord is in need of wise stewards. As we build and budget working with the sacred tithing funds of the Church it is important that we build quality while being wise stewards with the money that is spent. We are designing appropriate sized buildings and using building products and systems that are not excessive in cost. We select contractors, subcontractors and suppliers that provide the most responsible bid. For you as you build, remember that one of the most important skills you can learn and develop is the ability to budget in your marriage and family.”
Another principle Lewis shared is to incorporate building our lives with the Aloha Spirit. “I think building is important, I think how we build is more important," he said. "We should be honest, fair and represent the Savior as he would want to be represented. I don’t think that means we are pushovers. I think we can be demanding and make tough requests. I think we can be kind and expect to be on budget, finished on schedule meeting our quality standards.”
The final point he shared was the principle hope. “As members of The Church of Jesus Christ with the understanding of what has been restored, shouldn’t we be filled with hope and share that hope with others? As we build our marriages, families, communities, governments and the Church, those we associate with are praying for leaders with hope. The source of our hope is the Savior. Any other source is false. Searching the scriptures, seeking wisdom from the Apostles and Prophets and feeling the Spirit of the temple are ways that we can draw near the Savior and the hope that He shares.”
See David A. Lewis’ complete Devotional address from November 20, 2012.
University Devotionals are held each Tuesday at 11 AM in the Cannon Activities Center. Previous Devotionals can be viewed or read at http://devotional.byuh.edu/.