Sunday, March 22, 2015

Ways to Obtain Peace


Do you ever feel like life is hard? Do you feel overwhelmed with balancing life? We have so many responsibilities that pull us in varying ways. I was feeling particularly overwhelmed back in January with life when a friend messaged me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to go to the temple with her the next day. My gut reaction was no but as I paused to think about it I was like why not. So I said yes! I was so glad I did! As I sat in the temple pondering life and trying to take in as much of the peace we can receive at the temple I felt a very strong impression that I just needed to put the Lord first and that everything else would fall into place or off my plate. Feeling renewed I came home and I decided on rededicating myself to daily scripture study by reading all of the conference talks as I discussed here the other day.
The talk I started with was perfect for me another tender mercy from God. I read Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk “Make the Exercise of Faith Your First Priority”. Elder Scott is a powerful speaker. I feel his love emanate from him as he talks. He is a serious speaker but he does it with love and concern for our wellbeing. His talk opens with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and how they knew no pain or difficulties. “Because they had never experienced hard times, they did not know they could be happy. They had never felt turmoil, so they could not feel peace.” We discussed this principle in Relief Society at church a few weeks back about how we actually need to deal with our emotions and process all of our feelings to be able to feel the full range of emotions God has given us. While dealing with the pains of this life at times are difficult and overwhelming we can truly come to know and understand real joy and happiness. Thankfully we are not left alone in this world to suffer through our pains. Heavenly Father “prepared a way through the life of His perfectly obedient Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, for His Atonement to overcome every difficulty that we may experience in mortality.” Every difficulty! Not some of them but every difficulty we face in this life, we can overcome it through over Savior’s atonement. I have personally felt this in my life with both large and small injustices of life. I would not be the person I am today without the healing power of the atonement.
Elder Scott continues on “that our purpose in coming here {here being earth} is to be tested, tried, and stretched.” He reminds us of four tools Heavenly Father has given us to help us navigate our time on this earth to help us to be able to find the peace that we need to be able to continue forward in faith. Do you know what the first tool is? Prayer! Elder Scott advises us to “Choose to converse with your Father in Heaven often. Make time every day to share your thoughts and feelings with Him. Tell Him everything that concerns you. He is interested in the most important as well as the most mundane facets of your life.” If you ever feel like you are alone or that no one wants to listen to you, go to your Father in Heaven. There is nothing too small that He doesn’t long to hear about. He is all knowing and can help guide, direct and teach us. It is easy (I know) to get lazy in our prayers. But Elder Scott tells us that one of the blessings of daily prayer is, “your heart will begin to fill with peace, buoyant peace. That peace will focus an eternal light on your struggles. It will help you to manage those challenges from an eternal perspective.” We all can use help in our daily struggles and the Lord is willing to help us if we just turn to Him and constantly reach out to Him. Elder Scott also calls out the importance of daily prayer to safeguard our children before they go out into the world each day.
The second tool is scripture study. I like this quote from Elder Scott, “We talk to God through prayer. He most often communicates back to us through His written word. To know what the voice of the Divine sounds and feels like, read His words, study the scriptures, and ponder them.” Have you ever experienced this? It’s a pretty amazing thing how while I am studying my scriptures an answer to a prayer comes to my mind and often it is not related to what I am specifically reading. It is a blessing from doing what God asks us to do and putting ourselves in a place spiritually where God can teach us and bless us. I mentioned earlier that Elder Scott is a serious speaker, he is very direct and does not beat around the bush. In regards to finding time to study the scriptures each day he says, “Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!” That is very direct counsel from an Apostle of the Lord. Notice again though he doesn’t tell us how much time we need to spend studying the scriptures that is up to us and what we feel we can do each day. He promises us though that as we take time each day to study the scriptures, “…peace will prevail in your life. That peace won’t come from the outside world. It will come from within your home, from within your family, from within your own heart. It will be a gift of the Spirit. It will radiate out from you to influence others in the world around you. You will be doing something very significant to add to the cumulative peace in the world.” I want that peace in my home and in my life!
The third tool, and I struggle the most with this one, is having regular family home evening. I know it’s important and I want to do it. I just struggle to execute it. If you have any suggestions for doing family home evening I would love to hear them. Elder Scott’s counsel is to make it a priority and do it regularly. He shares of Sister Linda K. Reeves testimony of the importance of family home evening along with scripture study and prayer. “I must testify of the blessings of daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening. These are the very practices that help take away stress, give direction to our lives, and add protection to our homes.” Sister Reeves is a very wise woman. I strongly urge you to earn your own testimony of these three crucial habits.” Elder Scott urges us to follow after her example and gain a testimony of the first three steps so far. I shared this in church today that I love how the leaders of our church don’t expect us to just blindly obey they want us to gain our own testimonies of the truths they share. We can come to know for ourselves if these tools will bless us. How? The best way is to put them to the test and see what fruits come from our labors.
The fourth and last tool Elder Scott shares is temple attendance. He counsels “If you don’t have a temple recommend, qualify to get one. When you have a recommend, use it often. Schedule a regular time to be in the temple. Don’t let anyone or anything prevent you from being there.” I am trying to be better at my own personal temple attendance this year. I am working to find what my regular attendance can be and do it. As we attend the temple Elder Scott says, “...you are in the temple, listen to the words of the ordinances, ponder them, pray about them, and seek to understand their meaning. The temple is one of the best places to come to understand the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Seek Him there.” Christ’s spirit is very strong in the temple. He is the Prince of Peace so as we regularly go we shall receive more peace in our lives.
Now if we do all these things (prayer, scripture study, family home evening and regular temple attendance) does it mean life will be free from all challenges? No! We are here to be tested and tried and to gain experiences and show to Heavenly Father that we will keep the commandments He has given us and the covenants we make with Him. So life will not be challenge free but if we use these tools we will be blessed with more peace of mind and peace to our heart to be able to face the challenges that come our way. I know this to be true. I am so grateful for my Savior and His willingness to atone for my sins, pains and sorrows. I felt His peace in January as His spirit told me to put Him first and everything will fall into place. I am continuing to strive to do just that as it is a process but I know it will get easier as I try to follow my Savior’s example and turn to Him for peace.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Failing at a Challenge but Trying Again


I have just finished reading all of the Conference talks from October 2014. I had attempted to do this back in November. A new friend of mine had found a challenge online to read the conference talks in 40 days and you would end on Christmas day or right before Christmas. I was really excited! I’ve tried to read the conference talks in the past and go back and glean more from the words of the prophets and other leaders of the church but I usually forgot or was distracted and it fell to the wayside. We are counseled to “ponder the truths we have heard” by President Monson in his last talk “Until We Meet Again”. So again I was really excited to join in on this challenge and do what I know I should be doing. Though I didn’t really prepare myself very well for the challenge and I didn’t finish it.

Some time passed by and I had been sick (like 6+ weeks of being sick) and I wanted a blessing. I remember distinctly thinking I want a blessing but I don’t want to be chastised because I knew I wasn’t doing all that God wanted me to be doing. As soon as I had the thought of not wanting to be chastised, I remembered that often if we heed the words we are given from God we are blessed and strengthened. So after being chastised by my Heavenly Father in my blessing for not doing my scripture studies and drawing unto Him I got my act back together. (Side note: I can truly testify of the importance of daily scripture study!!! If we make it a habit it becomes easier but if we start to let it slide, it will completely fall away and it becomes so much harder to make it a habit again!!!) I went online and looked for ideas on how to really study the conference talks. I thought about it and decided I would highlight with a purpose. I’ve always highlighted things I’ve read in my scriptures and in the Ensign articles I read but I didn’t typically highlight with a purpose. I had 4 colors of highlighters so I came up with 4 topics or areas to look for in my studying of the conference talks.
 

Pink = Guidance
Green = Blessings/Promises
Purple = Move me or touches my heart
Blue = References to the Savior and His Atonement

Can I just say this really helped me to focus?! Sometimes when I do my scripture studies I start out really strong but then I kind of lose interest or focus but I want to be good so I just keep reading for the sake of reading my scriptures. Now don’t get me wrong it’s still a good thing but it’s better to be reading and actually taking something away or applying it to my life each time I am studying. And let’s face it there are some talks that just don’t really speak to us or stand out to us as amazing talks but by having my areas of focus it helped me to find things that I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed. I really have learned a lot! I feel so blessed having studied the words of our prophets and leaders of the church. And one thing that is cool about reading them is that they really are just like scriptures. Depending upon where we are in our life at the time of reading them they will speak to us differently. We can hear a conference talk and learn one thing but then as we go back and read it we can gain more insight! Such a blessing!
 

I’ve debated while I’ve been studying and making notes in my scripture study journal about sharing my thoughts and feelings. They say one way to tell if you’ve truly learned a principle is to share it. So I want to share what I’ve learned and hopefully learn from others as I do this and gain even further insights into the principles taught and shared at General Conference. General Conference is only 15 days away and I am excited as I prepare myself to be taught even more. I hope you too are excited to prepare yourself for the things God wants to teach us at this time in our life.
 
Have you tried studying the conference talks? What has helped you to keep the things you learned from conference fresh in your mind?