Even a Child Can Understand
People who try to find God sometimes think that they have to look for Him in intellectually complicated concepts.
However, our Heavenly Father is always available to us. He adapts to our level of understanding. “If He comes to a little child, He will adapt himself to the language and capacity of a little child” (Joseph Smith, in History of the Church, 3:392). God would indeed be unjust if the gospel were only accessible to an intellectual elite. In His goodness, He has ensured that the truths regarding God are understandable to all His children, whatever their level of education or intellectual faculty.
In reality, the fact that a principle can be understood even by a child is proof of its power. President John Taylor said, “It is true intelligence for a man to take a subject that is mysterious and great in itself and to unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it” (“Discourse,” Deseret News, Sept. 30, 1857, 238).
Little children have a marvelous disposition to learn. They have total trust in their teacher, a pure spirit, and great humility—in other words, the same qualities which open the door to the Holy Spirit. Knowing God is a matter of opening our hearts to gain a spiritual understanding and a fervent testimony of the truth of these few fundamental points of doctrine. Knowing God is having a testimony of His existence and feeling in one’s heart that He loves us. It is accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior and having a fervent desire to follow His example.
I pray that we will know how to open our hearts like a little child and take pleasure in hearing and practicing the word of God in all the power of its simplicity. I bear testimony that if we do this, we will gain the knowledge of the “mysteries [of God] and [the] peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal” (D&C 42:61). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. -- GÉRALD CAUSSÉ
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