110. Lovely and peaceful thoughts
Daylight Savings time means we go to Church an hour sooner in the morning! Our meetings start at 9 a.m., so we're going to bed early!
I loved some thoughts by Sister Linda K. Burton, general president of the Relief Society, given at a CES fireside last Sunday March 2, 2014, at BYU Idaho. ---which were in the Church News today. All the thoughts below are from her talk.
The Holy Ghost can do for us physically, spiritually, mentally and intellectually what no man-made remedy can begin to duplicate. Just as learning an instrument or a language is a process, learning the language of the Spirit is also a process, one that is vital for everyone to learn. It is through recognizing the voice of the Spirit that individuals are able to act and do what the Lord would have them do.
It is my deepest desire that we will increase in our ability to hear and understand the promptings of the Spirit and act on the promptings that we get from the Holy Ghost. In order to do so, we must first learn to recognize His voice.
(She shared nine ways to help individuals on their quest to draw closer to God and to hear His voice speaking to them).
We can begin by recognizing that our Father in Heaven wants to communicate with us, she said. We know this because all latter-day prophets have taught the doctrine of personal revelation. We do the small and simple things that demonstrate that He is first in our lives and that we want to receive revelation from Him.
1. Sincerely and humbly pray. (To pray sincerely means individuals ask questions and intend to act on the answer they receive, she said.)
2. Act promptly on spiritual impressions.
3. Search the scriptures daily. (Impressions and answers come through reading the scriptures.)
4. Live the law of the fast. (Through fasting comes the spirit of prophesy and revelation, and the opportunity to be counseled by the Lord.)
5. Be worthy and worship in the Temple. (President Smith didn't say individuals have to be perfect to receive inspiration, just willing to give their best efforts to living worthily. Worthiness seems a small price to pay in order to open the windows of heaven.)
6. Trifle not with sacred things. (Inspiration carefully recorded shows God that His communications are sacred to us. Such recording should be protected from loss or intrusion by others.)
7. Be prepared to move forward in faith. ( She mentioned that when she and her husband were engaged and making plans for the future and faced questions about school and when they should start a family, they turned to counsel given by a living prophet who taught they could have children while they were getting an education and work all at the same time. They moved forward in faith, and it wasn't easy. But those steps of faith resulted in eternal blessings, they might have forfeited had they not heeded the voice of the spirit.)
8. Let the Lord decide the details of what He chooses to reveal and when He chooses to reveal it. (When the Lord's timing conflicts with our own desires, trust that there might be some preparatory experiences the Lord needs us to have before our prayers are answered.)
9. Heed prophetic warnings. (The voice of the world is loud, unrelenting, persuasive and persistent. We need the Holy Ghost not only to lead us to everything that is 'virtuous, lovely, or of good report and praiseworthy' but to help us cultivate a desire for those things in order to resist the pull of the world.)
We're looking forward to an interesting week next week. I may miss a day or two here and there, because we will be around Salt Lake City from Tuesday to Sunday. Our granddaughter will open her mission call on Tuesday -- She has been on a 12 week "mini-mission", and her call is already waiting at the mission home in South Salt Lake.
Wednesday we will go to a funeral of the wife of one of Wayne's brothers who passed away 12 years ago. Friday we'll go to a musical program our son and others in the Tabernacle Choir will put on, and Saturday we will go to the Bountiful Temple when our granddaughter receives her endowments. Then Sunday before we come back home to St. George, we will go to her missionary farewell meeting. By then my computer will be fixed and I'll resume telling some fascinating pioneer stories. I hope everyone has a wonderful coming week!
I loved some thoughts by Sister Linda K. Burton, general president of the Relief Society, given at a CES fireside last Sunday March 2, 2014, at BYU Idaho. ---which were in the Church News today. All the thoughts below are from her talk.
The Holy Ghost can do for us physically, spiritually, mentally and intellectually what no man-made remedy can begin to duplicate. Just as learning an instrument or a language is a process, learning the language of the Spirit is also a process, one that is vital for everyone to learn. It is through recognizing the voice of the Spirit that individuals are able to act and do what the Lord would have them do.
It is my deepest desire that we will increase in our ability to hear and understand the promptings of the Spirit and act on the promptings that we get from the Holy Ghost. In order to do so, we must first learn to recognize His voice.
(She shared nine ways to help individuals on their quest to draw closer to God and to hear His voice speaking to them).
We can begin by recognizing that our Father in Heaven wants to communicate with us, she said. We know this because all latter-day prophets have taught the doctrine of personal revelation. We do the small and simple things that demonstrate that He is first in our lives and that we want to receive revelation from Him.
1. Sincerely and humbly pray. (To pray sincerely means individuals ask questions and intend to act on the answer they receive, she said.)
2. Act promptly on spiritual impressions.
3. Search the scriptures daily. (Impressions and answers come through reading the scriptures.)
4. Live the law of the fast. (Through fasting comes the spirit of prophesy and revelation, and the opportunity to be counseled by the Lord.)
5. Be worthy and worship in the Temple. (President Smith didn't say individuals have to be perfect to receive inspiration, just willing to give their best efforts to living worthily. Worthiness seems a small price to pay in order to open the windows of heaven.)
6. Trifle not with sacred things. (Inspiration carefully recorded shows God that His communications are sacred to us. Such recording should be protected from loss or intrusion by others.)
7. Be prepared to move forward in faith. ( She mentioned that when she and her husband were engaged and making plans for the future and faced questions about school and when they should start a family, they turned to counsel given by a living prophet who taught they could have children while they were getting an education and work all at the same time. They moved forward in faith, and it wasn't easy. But those steps of faith resulted in eternal blessings, they might have forfeited had they not heeded the voice of the spirit.)
8. Let the Lord decide the details of what He chooses to reveal and when He chooses to reveal it. (When the Lord's timing conflicts with our own desires, trust that there might be some preparatory experiences the Lord needs us to have before our prayers are answered.)
9. Heed prophetic warnings. (The voice of the world is loud, unrelenting, persuasive and persistent. We need the Holy Ghost not only to lead us to everything that is 'virtuous, lovely, or of good report and praiseworthy' but to help us cultivate a desire for those things in order to resist the pull of the world.)
We're looking forward to an interesting week next week. I may miss a day or two here and there, because we will be around Salt Lake City from Tuesday to Sunday. Our granddaughter will open her mission call on Tuesday -- She has been on a 12 week "mini-mission", and her call is already waiting at the mission home in South Salt Lake.
Wednesday we will go to a funeral of the wife of one of Wayne's brothers who passed away 12 years ago. Friday we'll go to a musical program our son and others in the Tabernacle Choir will put on, and Saturday we will go to the Bountiful Temple when our granddaughter receives her endowments. Then Sunday before we come back home to St. George, we will go to her missionary farewell meeting. By then my computer will be fixed and I'll resume telling some fascinating pioneer stories. I hope everyone has a wonderful coming week!
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