Sunday School leader was reluctant about NFL, but God had a different plan 

The big tight end from American Samoa loved football but was worn down by constant self-doubt, so when NFL scouts told him he had a professional future, he still felt done with the sport.

This isn’t one of those stories about a sport not being done with a player. No, in this case it was God who was not done with Brother Gabriel Reid, now the second counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I was ready to hang up the football cleats,” he said Tuesday during a campus devotional at Brigham Young University. “I struggled a lot with self doubt, anxiety and the constant fear of failure. I had coaches who believed in me, NFL scouts who came to watch, but I didn’t believe in myself. Rather than stepping up, I often stepped back, convinced I wasn’t good enough.”

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So he sought God’s guidance in scripture study, prayer and regular temple attendance and got a big surprise.

“I received an unmistakable prompting — pursue an NFL career. It wasn’t what I wanted, it wasn’t what I had planned, but I chose to trust the Lord,” he said.

Brother Reid, whose title signifies his role in the international leadership of the church’s Sunday School program, spent four years in the NFL, played in a Super Bowl and built a family with his wife, Heather.

Speaking to 5,108 at the Marriott Center on the BYU campus a week after his former teammate and current BYU football coach Kalani Sitake gave the devotional, Brother Reid shared two other times he felt prompted to act.

He encouraged students to seek the Lord’s guidance and then go forward, work and build with faith in the Lord’s plan.

A prompting to serve a mission became “the catalyst that set me on a path that continues to bless my life today,” he said.

Another, to move to American Samoa, was a proving ground. His family struggled to accept the move, but it didn’t materialize because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When church leaders called Reid as president of the Australia Sydney Mission from 2021-24, the family was prepared for a move to a foreign country, he said.

“Some revelations are received immediately and intensely. Some are recognized gradually and subtly,” he said. “Receiving, recognizing and responding to revelation from God are spiritual gifts for which we all should yearn and appropriately seek. Once you receive and recognize revelation, the questions arise:

“What will you do with it? How will you respond?”

Tuesday’s devotional was the second Reid has given at a church university in the past five months. He gave a talk titled “Fumbling Is Not Failing” at BYU-Idaho in October. The message centered around the time he fumbled a kickoff in a Super Bowl.

“Know that God hears you, he sees you and he is leading you,” he said Tuesday. “Go, work, build and don’t look back. Trust that the Lord has a plan. He knows your desires, your goals, your hopes. If he prompts you to move forward in faith, go with courage. Work at it with all your heart, might, mind and strength.

“Trust that the Lord is building you.”