Fortifying Your Testimony: Never letting it come to a point that you no longer believe

There's a common theme I’ve heard lately: Good members of the church with testimonies leaving the church for many reasons.

When we hear these stories we could ask ourselves, "How can I be assured that this won’t happen to me?"

I can’t imagine it would, but I assume that some others who have left the church felt the same way at one point, and I want to know what to prepare myself against it. I feel the Spirit so strong regularly, and I know how much I need it.  I don’t ever want anything to change that goodness in my life and twist it to take it away. 

In Stake Conference at one of the evening Adult sessions a year or so ago, President Duckworth shared an example from his life.  He had some good friends who he had served with in Leadership callings in the church that he really admired and respected who just all of a sudden announced that they no longer had a testimony and weren’t attending church anymore.  His heart was broken and he had to take a deep look at his life.

It was a wonderful talk, and he gave us a couple of great ways to protect ourselves from letting things like that happen. Some of these are almost identical to the things that Bishop Causse included in the Ensign article, Keeping the faith in a world of confusion.

Four things we can do to fortify our testimonies and remain strong

1. Ground ourselves in the things that we know are true.

The Lord, nevertheless, supplies us with the knowledge necessary for our salvation and exaltation. He promises, “Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name it shall be given unto you, that is expedient for you” (D&C 88:64). We receive these answers progressively, “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” (2 Nephi 28:30), depending on our needs and our capacity to comprehend. ~ Bishop Gerald Causse

2. Get comfortable not knowing the answers to all things
    (or as Bishop Causse said it: Accept unanswered questions)

Now, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study and learn and grapple with questions that we don’t understand.  We can ponder, and suffer, and study it out, but at the end of the day, we may need to realize that we don’t have the Lord’s wisdom and perspective yet, and we must accept that.

Along with this, I’d like to point out that anytime we are hearing something or learning something that we can tell the Spirit has withdrawn from us, we need to stop whatever it is right there until we can learn again with the Spirit present.  Satan uses all sorts of tools (bitterness, anti-mormon discussions, etc) to try to make us pull up our roots of faith.

Studying the word of God protects us from the influence of false doctrines. The Lord said, “For unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”

Each of us may experience moments of personal doubt. These doubts are rarely alleviated by the search for rational explanations. For example, some scientific or archaeological discoveries may reinforce our testimonies of scripture, but spiritual knowledge cannot be proven by logic or physical evidence. ~ Bishop Gerald Causse

3. Accept imperfection.
    In other members and in our church leaders. In our church’s history AND future. In our own church culture.

All members of the Church at some time in their lives face moments that test the sincerity and strength of their testimonies. Braving these trials of our faith helps us stand firm in a world that is falling more and more into the depths of confusion. This confusion is evident in the barrage of messages that surround us. With the advent of the Internet, for example, an uninterrupted avalanche of contradictory opinions and information invades our everyday lives. These contradictions can become disconcerting and paralyzing. ~ Richard G. Scott, The Power of a Strong Testimony

4. Nourish Your Testimony. 
    Find opportunities to feel the Spirit. Study the word of God, including the words of the Prophet.
    Experiment on the Word, and stick with it during trials of faith

Honestly evaluate your personal life. How strong is your own testimony? Is it truly a sustaining power in your life, or is it more a hope that what you have learned is true? Is it more than a vague belief that worthwhile concepts and patterns of life seem to be reasonable and logical? Such mental assent will not help when you face the serious challenges that will inevitably come to you. Does your testimony guide you to correct decisions? To do so, fundamental truths must become part of the very fiber of your character. They must be an essential part of your being, more treasured than life itself. If an honest assessment of your own testimony confirms that it is not as strong as it should be, how can it be strengthened? ~ Richard G. Scott

Do we constantly ask ourselves these questions and check-in spiritually?

A strong testimony gives peace, comfort, and assurance. It generates the conviction that as the teachings of the Savior are consistently obeyed, life will be beautiful, the future secure, and there will be capacity to overcome the challenges that cross our path. A testimony grows from understanding truth, distilled from prayer and the pondering of scriptural doctrine. It is nurtured by living those truths in faith and the secure confidence that the promised results will be obtained.  ~ Richard G. Scott

The parable of the ten virgins teach about spiritual self-reliance

Thinking about storing up experiences made me turn to the Parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25, and I read it and started to really study it when I found a talk given to Relief Society sisters on how we can apply the parable to ourselves.

In the parable, ten maidens are waiting to join in a bridal celebration. The bridegroom hasn't come and no one knows when he will arrive. The women, as was the custom, have lamps with them to carry to contribute to this great event. At first, the lamps are all lit and glowing. But the party is late and the maidens fall asleep. All of a sudden, in the middle of the night the call comes to light the lamps. "The bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him."

And then came the point of reckoning. Five of the maidens have extra oil to light their lamps and five don't. (The Hebrews described lighting the lamp as "trimming" in other words, "preparing.") The five who are unprepared, beg for some extra oil from their sisters who are well supplied; their pleas are refused. They race to the market to buy some oil to start their lamps. In the meantime, the bridegroom arrives, the five wise, well-prepared maidens join in the celebration and the doors are closed. When the other five arrive—late—they are not admitted, "Lord, Lord, open to us," they say. "But he answered, I know you not."

This parable can seem to have some puzzling aspects. Why didn't the virgins share? Sharing is usually a good thing. Why was the party given so late? Who was in charge? Where was the charity? And how could they lock the door so heartlessly? Repentance is a powerful tool why can’t it be used here?

Here are two questions you have often heard and said:” What do you need?” and “How can I help?” How many times have you heard these? How many times have you said them? 

So now I ask: "What do you need?" My answer is: "Oil." 

Oil for our lamps is our spirituality, our testimony, our spiritual self-reliance, our centering on eternal perspectives and our personal commitment to Jesus Christ. When our lamps are full of oil and we have filled our reserves, we are full of the Holy Ghost. 

Oil brings many images to mind.  Olive oil was considered the dearest, brightest and most steady oil. 

These are the words I would use to describe so many women, like you, who have prepared and are continuing to prepare. Women who accept callings and serve with vitality and dedication. Women who are at their meetings, ready to learn, to contribute from their own personal store of knowledge and testimony. Women who say, "What do you need?" and then find it, and do it. They have oil to fill the lamp. Often they do little things, and those things matter so much. Like someone saying "I'll drive," or a sister bringing me the first daffodils in bloom. 

Our sisters are always applying the counsel in the Doctrine and Covenants: "Wherefore be faithful, praying always, having your lamps trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom" (D&C 33:17). ~ Elaine L. Jack

Now, the second question, "How can I help?" Clearly we can provide a place for the "tired and poor" to begin to build their own oil reserves. We also can add to the supply some of the brightest beams of goodness on the earth today, and that's you, the women of the Relief Society.

The Ten Virgins represent members of the Church—and half will not be ready with enough oil when the Lord comes—that is sobering! Imagine our own Relief Society in our stake. What would we do without some of our sisters? This is a parable for us as members of the Church, sisters, and we must heed the warning.

Remember the question, "What do you need?" The answer is oil.

Can you share your oil sisters? Can you reach into your soul and share your ten years of morning prayer or family prayer? Can you share the personal peace of regular temple attendance and paying tithes? Or the spiritual truths that have been borne to you as you have visited sisters in their homes? Can you share the strengths that are formed on a mission or from supporting a missionary? You can share what you have learned, but you cannot share the spiritual power that is in your soul. Not one sister in this Church will be saved on the merits or abundance of another. These individual efforts invite the Holy Ghost to be with us to prompt us in righteousness. ~ Elaine L. Jack

The conclusion of the Parable of the Ten Virgins is significant. It says, "Watch, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." Watch, sisters is a call to be ready. Five were prepared. The other five misinterpreted their time. "This is the time...to prepare to meet God."

But we can overcome the world trying to get us to loosen our roots, and use up our oil.  We can work on storing so much oil, deepening our roots and gaining stronger and stronger testimonies so that we will not be left dry.  So that we will still be faithful when the time comes. 

And we can help share our experiences with each other.  If we do nothing else, we need to try to help each sister in our ward store up their own oil in their lamps, because this gospel has all the answers to everything that they will come up against and need.

Devon

Bondage

It's been some time since I've posted here. I've taken a break in the last few months to focus on a little self-care. But I've missed sharing a few thoughts about the gospel with you. e
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It's Screen-free Week this week. Helping ourselves and our children unplug once in a while is healthy.

Unplugging, turning off, ceasing, escaping could apply to anything that has its grasp on us.

We may be in bondage to all kinds of things: Ways we've chosen to comfort ourselves, unhealthy ways we've learned to cope, health problems, difficult relationships, the choices of another, the strength of our emotions, and so on.

You name it and we can become enslaved to it.

Escape is possible. Relief and hope are possible. His arm of mercy is extended.

This scripture about the people of Alma in bondage to wicked King Noah is even more powerful when taken out of context and applied to our lives.

But behold, he did deliver them because they did humble themselves before him; and because they cried mightily unto him he did deliver them out of bondage; and thus doth the Lord work with his power in all cases among the children of men, extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him (Mosiah 29:20).

Notice the formula here?

Notice that it says "in all cases". Even your and my particular bondage.

The Lord can deliver us with his power and does extend His arm of mercy when we...

1. Humble ourselves before Him
2. Cry mightily unto Him
3. Put our trust in Him

This is how we activate our faith and our repentance. In all cases.

This is how we "unplug" from that which holds us captive. In all cases.

Ellen King

Photo by Kichigai Mentat

Quotes - more Oil for our Lamps

This past Sunday Owenna shared a couple of wonderful, thought-provoking quotes as comments to the Relief Society & Sunday School lessons, and I've asked her to send them to us all for the blog.  They really made me think and ponder, as some of the best quotes are known to do!  Here they are in Owenna's own words:

I e-mailed my sister (Kathleen Bahr; retired BYU prof) to ask for her exact words. She told me I was actually quoting her paraphrase of Kiekegaard. Since I like hers better, I've included it as well as the original. I am grateful that these quotes that I have repeated to myself so often might be of help to someone else as well -- even though over time I have managed to garble them from the original.

"To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is really an un-Christian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian, love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what-not: it was the work of love which was his life." —Søren Kierkegaard on Christianity

Owenna's version of Kathleen's version of Kierkegaard:

"When Christ commanded us to love one another, I do not believe he was commanding our emotions, because they cannot, in fact, be commanded. I believe he was commanding our behavior. Love is an action verb. He was commanding us to behave in loving ways toward each other, even when love, as an emotion, is weak or absent."

Gale, visiting our RS from Kansas, also asked for the definition of faith that I attributed to Elder Gene R. Cook in SS. Well, I was wrong again - with my memory it is a wonder that I remembered the quote at all. It is properly attributed to Elder Stephen Nadault (Ensign, Dec. 95), not Elder Cook.

Elder Nadault pointed out that "when Joseph Smith re-translated parts of the Bible, he changed the word "substance" to "assurance," the way it is in Greek. So we could re-word the scripture to read 'Faith is having or accepting an assurance of things hoped for, and accepting evidence of things not seen.'"

When I read this years ago, it really turned on a light for me. My own paraphrase is: "Faith is a willingness to accept the assurances our Heavenly Father has given us as being sufficient."
Owenna

Thanks Owenna for these great morsels to savor and ponder.  We can always use more oil to put in our spiritual lamps!

Lesson Recap: Righteous Choices and Unity

Based on a talk, Coming Together and Sustaining Each Other in Righteous Choices
By Renata Forste, BYU Women’s Conference 2010. Watch video

Sister Forste starts her talk quoting Paul in 1st Corinthians 1:10

Now I beseech you, [sisters], by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Sister Forste breaks her talk into three parts.

First, she says: Paul admonishes the saints, that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you.

When Paul directed the saints to speak the same thing, I do not believe that he was suggesting that we all think and be the same, but that we speak the same testimony. It is our testimony of Jesus Christ and the restoration that is the same—that is what unites us.

I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago back in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Mike and I lived in student housing on the south side of Chicago and attended the Hyde Park Ward. My first visiting teaching companion was Sister Cathy Stokes. She was the Relief Society president and a long-time south side resident. One of the first things Cathy had to teach me was how to parallel park!

Later, my companion was Sister Nancy Johnson, a new convert to the church. I remember sitting with Nancy in the humble home of Sister Susan Walker as we visit taught her. Susan was an older, very gracious woman and had grown up in the South during segregation.

Both my companion and sister Walker were African American, older, single sisters with whom – at least demographically—I had very little in common. Yet, as we sat and shared testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration, I felt very close to these sisters. We spoke the same thing – the same spiritual language. I loved them, and I knew that they loved me.

In contrast, I didn’t feel the same connection with my fellow students at the university—even though we were very similar in terms of race, age, education, and socio-economic background.

We didn’t share or speak the same faith and testimony.

Sister Forste says: As covenant women, we come from all walks of life, all ages, marital statuses, incomes, education levels, race and ethnic backgrounds—but together, we speak the same simple testimony, we comfort each other and sustain each other in our mutual faith. Our testimony of Jesus Christ crosses all boundaries—political, racial, economic, and national. We are the same, as covenant daughters of God. That doesn’t mean we are the same in all of our life decisions, or even in how we live the principles of the gospel. Lord wants us all to return to him, but not in a straight line—meaning that the Lord doesn’t expect us to all be exactly alike.

We should come together as one.

To illustrate, here is a page from a phone book.

By itself, it is very weak and easy to tear. But on the Discovery Channel it was shown that if you interlock the pages from a phone book with those of another book it is almost impossible to separate the two books. On Myth Busters they drilled holes and put brackets and chains to secure the ends of the two interlocked books.

Amazingly it took 8000 pounds of pressure to pull the books apart!

This interlocking is similar to the command Alma gave the priests he ordained to minister to the people at the waters of Mormon: And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another.

Sister Forste says: Now think about the force of millions of Relief Society sisters from all over the world, perfectly joined together—their hearts knit together in unity. To be perfectly joined together—we are unstoppable. Satan won’t have Sheridan tanks big enough to pull us apart.

So how do we then become perfectly joined together?

Sister Forste explained: This is the second part of what Paul asked us to do.

She says to be perfectly joined together in the same mind, means that we willingly conform (or sustain each other) in humility. We become one in the body of Christ and if one member suffers, we suffer with them. If one member is honored, we rejoice with them.

Elder Pace, in an Ensign address said:

I am convinced that when we obtain a witness of who we really are and possess healthy feelings of self-worth because of it, our joy in the accomplishments of others is magnified. When that joy is felt, we should share it.

Being humble and rejoicing in the accomplishments of others does not mean we should lack confidence in ourselves.

One woman writer, in her article, Why Can’t Women Get Along?, noted that...

...secretly, we all have ideas of what the perfect woman is like; and when we see another woman possibly attaining even one of these attributes, outcome the claws.

But, she asks, is it jealousy of each other or a lack of confidence in ourselves?

She relates the story of talking with a couple of her friends about the perfect woman—each describing what they thought the perfect woman was like. What she realized was that they were each describing someone the complete opposite of themselves.

She said it’s us!

It’s not about what some other woman has that is stopping us from getting along with them. It’s what we feel we don’t have that is getting in the way.

She writes: What women need to learn is how to truly appreciate themselves for who they are and what makes them truly beautiful. Until we get there, we’ll never get to appreciating each other and building real friendships among ourselves.

In his talk, The Other Prodigal, Elder Holland said:

Who is it that whispers so subtly in our ear that a gift given to another somehow diminishes the blessings we have received?

Who makes us feel that if God is smiling on another, then He surely must somehow be frowning on us?

You and I both know who does this—it is the father of all lies.

It is Lucifer, our common enemy, whose cry down through the corridors of time is always and to everyone, “Give me thine honor.”

. . . As others seem to grow larger in our sight, we think we must therefore be smaller. So, unfortunately, we occasionally act that way.

Finally, Paul instructs us to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

To illustrate this, Sister Forste shares a very personal story.

Everyone who interviews for a faculty position at BYU has an interview with a general authority of the church. Over fifteen years ago in my interview, I raised the question about me, a mother, being employed at BYU. The general authority who interviewed me did two very important things. First, he reaffirmed the principles laid out in the Proclamation on the Family. Then he said, “You and your husband need to pray to Father in Heaven and decide what is best for your kingdom – that is your family.” And then he said, “I am happy to recommend you to teach at BYU.”

I came away from that experience with a testimony that we each must individually keep the commandments. As we are obedient, keep our covenants, pray and read the scriptures—we will receive personal revelation regarding how we, individually, should apply the principles of the gospel in our lives.

Remember sisters’ it is the friction or tension between the phone book pages that creates a force that holds the pages together.

As sisters in the gospel, our uniqueness as individuals can be a force binding us together or, can create contention that eventually pulls us apart. Being of the same mind does not mean we all make the exact same choices, but it does mean that we sustain each other in our decisions as individuals.

As covenant women, we should be as the Nephites after the coming of Christ as recorded in 4th Nephi, among whom there were not any manner of –ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God… and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God.

We may not have it all together but together we have it all!

I love the sisters who are young and just joining us in Relief Society as they bring a fresh perspective to me and my testimony.

I love the sisters who are older and have substantial life experience. They testify that even in the darkest hour of our trials, “this too shall pass.” Their examples help me keep anchored in the Lord.

I love the sisters who worry over everything; it reminds me that only the Savior can bring peace in my life so I will go to my knees more often. My Grandpa used to say “worrying is like a rocking chair, you can do it all day and never get anywhere.”

I love the sisters who have raised children who have stayed true to the faith because they give me hope as I look at my children. They also give me ideas that I can use in my own home.

I love the sisters whose children are wayward, because they know and testify that the covenant will follow after these children and the Lord will bring about miracles in our lives. These Sisters get life experiences that our Heavenly Father has all the time.

I love the sisters who think they have perfect children because it reminds me to relax and know that image is not everything.

I love the sisters who have children that are wild and run all over. They remind me of the time my children were little and the sweet experiences I gained pouring out my heart to the Lord expressing feelings of inadequacy. He was with me during this time.

I love the sisters who don’t have children because they have taken the time to help me raise my children. I get to know mine, and have helped me to riven my children experiences that I have not. In our ward we have a couple of these wonderful couples and my boys love to spend time with them.

I love the sisters who have judged me; they remind me how it feels to be judged and that forgiveness is action not a thought.

I love the sisters who have forgiven me when I have judged them. They allow me to go back to the basics, feel sorry, say sorry and do better.

I love the sisters who feel they are obligated to speak their mind.

I love the sisters who forgive me when I speak my mind.

I love the sisters who have lost someone they dearly love; they understand when I cry over my losses and they testify to me that I will see my loved ones again. Through the sharing of their testimony, mine testimony is strengthened.

I love the sisters whose sing beautifully they bring a special spirit to our meetings that I really cannot.

I love the sisters who work outside of the home as they bring knowledge to our meetings and help to bridge a gap to the world that some of us don’t experience.

I love the sisters that serve me. They understand the true meaning of the pure love of Christ and seek to live His Gospel.

I love the sisters that allow me to serve them. Because of that service I am able to forget the problems in my life and allow the Savior to carry the burden and focus on the way he would have me live.

I love the sisters that are confident in the Lord. They have been bathed in the Atonement and know the sweet fruit therein. When Satan tries to remind them of their past, they boldly remind him of his future.

These are the sisters of our ward. I love you. Your Heavenly Father loves you; he testified that to me this past week.

I saw so many of your faces as I wrote these words.

We are the yellow pages unique in our lives, experiences, and application but we all have favor in our Heavenly Father's sight.

Please take time to learn this, know this, and treat yourself and your sister like the precious daughters of God you are.

Charity

Photo Credit

Scriptural Insight: Peace

Guest Blogger: Ellen King

I was listening to the Book of Mormon on the way to work one day and heard the phrase peace as a river in the Isaiah chapters in first Nephi.

After inviting us to hearken, and come near, and keep the commandments, the Lord promises “thy peace [will be] as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” (1Nephi 20:18) Many other wonderful promises follow as vivid metaphors.

I love that phrase—peace like a river.

Maybe because it reminds me of the book Peace Like a River, by author Leif Enger. We read it a few years ago in book club. (I actually listened to it on CD and so I was quite wrapped up in the plot.)

My favorite part is near the end where the main character, an 11-year-old asthmatic boy, is describing a heavenly scene of great fields and grand orchards and being able to run freely and breathe easily. He runs with joy towards the sound of beautiful music and a river leading to a glorious city. The river turns out to be a flow of people who have joined in the journey toward the light of all lights.

The meadow hummed as though thick with the nests of waking creatures, and the grasses were canyon colored, lifting their heads as I passed. Moving up the river the humming began to swell—it was magnetic, a sound uncurling into song and light and even a scent, which was like earth. ...And the pulse of the country came around me, as of voices lifted at great distance, and moved through me as I ran until the words came clear, and I sang with them a beautiful and curious chant. ...[when I reached a pass I looked] to the plains below, at movement I took at first to be rivers—winding, flowing, light coming off them. They came from all directions, streaming toward the city...singing a hymn that rose up to us on the mountain...joyous and sanctified.

When I heard the phrase “peace as a river” in first Nephi, I stopped the CD so I could ponder what it meant for a few minutes. Usually my commute "pondering" ends up being worrying over work and family, making mental lists of things I need to do and conversations I need to have.

But not today...

Peace like a river, peace like a river...hmm. Most rivers I think of are ever moving, rough and tumble over boulders and stones, eroding their banks, carrying tons of rock and silt to the sea. Feels like my life. That's not peaceful.

But wait now, I do know bigger more peaceful rivers. What about the Mississippi?

Still, when you're on a river, even a big river, you have to be ever vigilant, worrying about what's downstream or constantly working to move upstream or to stay afloat even. That's not peaceful.

Although, there were times when I was younger, when we floated down rivers on inner tubes or rafts—quiet, enjoying nature, soaking in the sun, or laughing and singing. Those are good memories and they give me peace when I think back on them.

But maybe it's not about the river itself or anyone on the river. What if there were other qualities of rivers that can be compared to peace? How does one feel peace like a river? How does hearkening to the commandments give thee peace like a river?

Then it dawned on me.

Large rivers are fed by many smaller tributaries.

Especially the Mississippi. It begins at Lake Itasca in the Minnesota North Woods and is fed by pure waters bubbling from springs in the tops of mountains, then gathers waters from many streams as it moves toward the Gulf. It’s name is a Chippewa Indian word meaning 'gathering of waters'.

Maybe personal peace comes from many small sources in our lives, that combine to make up an encompassing peace or a lifetime of peace.

There was the truth, my truth, and the Spirit bore witness.

Small things, even widely spaced, can add up to a full sense of peace.

Here are some that do it for me...the smile of a sleeping baby, the smell of baking cookies or bread, the song of bird on a spring day, a few quiet minutes in the sun with my cat, a soft 'I love you' whispered just before dropping off to sleep, the distant sound of a lawn mower on a summer afternoon, the sudden whiff of honeysuckle, the whoosh of air when swinging on a swing, the crisp morning air on a clear autumn day, the snapping of pine logs as they burn in the campfire.

Yes, those are pleasant and peaceful, but these are even greater: the weight of my scriptures on my lap, emptying all my thoughts onto the pages of my journal, a completed prayer before climbing into bed, my favorite hymn being sung in church on a Sunday when I really needed it, the taste of simple food after a day of fasting, the rested mind once the tithing is paid, the distinct feeling of being clean when taking the sacrament, the soft tinkle of the chandelier in the Celestial room in the temple, His love as though arms were placed around me, the quiet thrill as the Spirit testifies.

Now that I’m focused on noticing and remembering, there are so many. How can I not see them more often...and remember the peace?! Maybe that’s why we covenant to always remember the Lord. The remembering is so important.

Until we have eyes to see, we don't recognize the small streams of peace that mix in with our everyday lives. And those streams come from the source of living water: He causes the water to flow out of the rock for us; he clave the rock also and the waters gush out...and we thirst not; He leads us through the deserts (see 1 Nephi 20:21) —and we thirst not, and we thirst not.

Let us always remember the source of our peace. Let us hearken to His commandments as Isaiah counsels, that our peace shall be as a river.

Ellen King

Scriptural Insights: Optimism

Guest blogger: Miranda Searle

Because the times are tough for many with the economy and high prices, a scripture story that I have read many times, really stood out to me.

I was reading the Book of Mormon in first Nephi chapter three, where Nephi and his brothers have just been told by their father, Lehi, to "go unto the house of Laban, and seek the records, and bring them down hither into the wilderness."

In vs. 5-7, Lehi says "thy brothers murmur, saying, it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord." Then he commends Nephi, "thou shalt be favored of the Lord, because thou hast not murmured."

Now Nephi shows his amazing example of faithfulness. He says, “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded.” In contrast, in the following verses, the brothers continue to murmur.

I have heard this story many times, but this lesson really stood out to me: In these times when life is difficult and it seems like we are surrounded with things to murmur about we should strive to be more like Nephi.

I have always strived to be a positive person and find the best in all situations. I do not consider myself a complainer or a pessimistic person, but as I read this story I had a new desire to always be like Nephi and not murmur, for I want to be "favored of the Lord.”

Let's all be like Nephi and not murmur about our trials, but go forward with faith.

The scriptures are true and we are so blessed to know that. I testify of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and I hold them close to my heart.

Scriptural Insights: Fasting

Guest blogger: Ellen King

Fasting as a synonym for rejoicing?! Um, not so much.

Fasting is not easy for me (nor for most, I suspect). Going without food and water for a day in world where most people feed every appetite and passion instantly, until it's satiated, seems a little extreme in the opposite direction. Knowing it's the right thing to do, doesn't always make it easier, let alone call for rejoicing during the doing of it. But this week I caught a glimpse.

This week for FHE, Wade and I studied the Sunday School lesson scriptures. The topic was on fasting and tithing. As we took turns reading the scriptures, the blessings of fasting jumped off the page.

I grabbed some paper and with a marker made a list of the blessings to hang up on the bathroom mirror, so we could ponder them.

We could have dived deeper into the cross-references in order to understand the metaphors, but the power of the promised blessings of the fast from those few scriptures was sufficient food for thought for this week.

I emphasize the word power. Who doesn't want more power from heaven to get through their days?! Taken all together, this list is powerful.

• Your joy may be full
• Fasting is rejoicing
• Fullness of earth is yours
• Loose bands of wickedness
• Undo heavy burdens
• Oppressed go free
• Break every yoke
• Thy light breaks forth
• Health shall spring forth speedily
• Thy righteousness shall go before thee
• The glory of the Lord shall be thy rearguard
• Lord will answer call
• And say "here am I" when cry
• Thy light rise in obscurity or shine in darkness
• Thy darkness shall be as noonday
• Lord shall guide continually
• Satisfy soul in drought (personal security in time of need)
• Make fat (strengthen) thy bones
• Be a watered garden
• Spring of waters fail not (inspiration and wisdom continually)
• They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places
• Raise up foundations of many generation
• Called repairer of breach and restorer of paths to dwell (reactivation and rehabilitation)
• More power to prayer
  
• Thy Father shall reward thee openly

Wow, every time I read it I have the same feeling of power.

Well, here is the interesting part (sorry for the long post). Just a few days later I had need in my soul for "undoing a heavy burden" and hearing the Lord say "here am I" when I cried, and several other of these promises. I had a family member in need and I wanted to know what to do and say. I needed prayers with more power.

So, I remembered the promises and I fasted. Right there in the middle of the week.

With these promises fresh in my mind, I found it was easier this time. During a busy work day, I had reason (a grumbling stomach) to refocus for a few minutes on this important matter and say a quick prayer. It didn't feel like the "suffering" of past fasts. I knew God heard me that day.

And, there were even a few moments of...rejoicing!


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