Howard W. Hunter on the Lord's promise of "heavenly help"

President Howard W. Hunter (1907-1995) was called to the Quorum of Twelve in 1959.  He served as Church President for only nine months, from June 5, 1994 to his death on March 3, 1995.

"All of us face times in our lives when we need heavenly help in a special and urgent way. We all have moments when we are overwhelmed by circumstances or confused by the counsel we get from others, and we feel a great need to receive spiritual guidance, a great need to find the right path and do the right thing. In the scriptural preface to this latter-day dispensation, the Lord promised that if we would be humble in such times of need and turn to him for aid, we would 'be made strong, and [be] blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.' (D&C 1:28.) That help is ours if we will but seek it, trust in it, and follow what King Benjamin, in the Book of Mormon, called 'the enticings of the Holy Spirit.' (Mosiah 3:19.)

"Perhaps no promise in life is more reassuring than that promise of divine assistance and spiritual guidance in times of need. It is a gift freely given from heaven, a gift that we need from our earliest youth through the very latest days of our lives."

- Howard W. Hunter, "Blessed From On High," Ensign, Nov. 1988, p. 59
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I certainly know about those times in life "when we need heavenly help in a special and urgent way." President Hunter is right that such times come to us all, eventually, to some degree. It helps immensely if we are comfortable and familiar with the process of how to "receive spiritual guidance" already. Then we need only to "be humble" and "turn to him" in our sincerity.

I know that the promised help, what President Hunter calls the most reassuring promise of all, is real and is truly a gift from God.