Students need to find their weaknesses and take them to the Lord, Michael Barnes, professor of health science and director of the public health masters program at BYU, told students Tuesday in a university Devotional.

Barnes reflected on the life of President Heber J. Grant, referencing the testing center named after him as the "center to know our weaknesses."

"I greatly admire President Grant's faith, courage and determination to work on his weaknesses, and like our living prophets on earth today, I appreciate the example of president Grant who became strong in Christ," Barnes said.

Barnes addressed his own weakness of striving for perfection and how he learned to accept Christ in his life to make peace with his struggles.

"I asked for help to understand my weakness, and I received many answers from the scriptures," he said. "Once the Lord began to understand my weakness, I began to understand the help I would need from the Lord to deal with it. At first I prayed for the weakness to be taken away, to be removed like sin as one repents. However, it did not go away; rather I began to feel peace from knowing that the Lord would help me deal with it."

Barnes introduced five "A's" to find peace in "God-given weaknesses."

First, accept Christ's invitation to come unto him; second, ascertain one's God given weaknesses; third, appreciate weaknesses as a gift; fourth, allow Christ's grace to strengthen and enable; and fifth, acknowledge when one is weak and when one is strong.

Doris Clark, a freshman majoring in biology, was keeping the challenge administered in her freshman orientation last week to attend all university Devotionals.

"I like how he talks about the atonement as more than an opportunity to be forgiven of your sins," she said.

"He said that living the gospel doesn't prevent you from having trials, but when we have weaknesses it strengthens our opportunity to receive God's grace," she said.