Counsel With the Lord In All Thy Doings

This is a sacrament talk I gave in October which I had not yet posted.  I have been recently reminded of the importance of its principles in my life.  

I’ve been asked to speak today on prayer, referencing the most recent General Conference.  The first talk, given by Sister Carol F. McConkie, First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, is entitled “Prayer Is The Soul’s Sincere Desire.”  The second talk, by Elder Juan A. Uceda of the Seventy, is called “The Lord Jesus Christ Teaches Us How to Pray.”

  Elder Uceda asks “When you pray, are you really praying or just saying prayers? Are you superficial with your prayers?” 

It is all too easy to get caught up in “vain repetitions” (Matthew 6:7) when we pray.  Sometimes, in our busy lives, praying can turn into a task to be marked off on our “church checklist.”  Sister McConkie reminds us that it can be so much more.“For us, miraculous healing, powerful protection, divine knowledge, liberating forgiveness, and precious peace are among the answers that come when we offer up a “soul’s sincere desire” in faith.”

As I prepared for this talk the Holy Ghost taught me much about how to pray and what to pray for, showing me through scripture another amazing blessing that comes from prayer.

In Nephi’s powerful final sermon he teaches the doctrine of Christ, the foundational principles which will lead to our salvation.  He begins by teaching the need for baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Referring to those who have followed the commandments and received these ordinances he says this:  “And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.

            Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.  Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Ne 31: 19-20)”

Nephi is teaching us that we already have what we need to gain eternal life; those things inspired us to be baptized and will lead us on to live with God again.   They are 1) the word of Christ (both written scripture and personal revelation) 2) unshaken faith in Jesus Christ, including a true, active belief that His atonement applies to us personally and 3) reliance on the merits, strength and power of Christ, which is known as grace. 

Later in his sermon he talks more specifically about the word of Christ “... feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all the things what ye should do (2 Ne 32:3).”

 The Nephite people likely did not have personal, individual copies of scripture.  So when Nephi tells the people to feast upon the word of Christ he was saying feast on communication with the Holy Spirit, on its inspiration and promptings.  Note that Nephi promises us that if we feast upon the words of Christ we will have eternal life. 

Alma speaking to his son Helaman, teaches this same doctrine.

"Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever. 

 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.” (Alma 37:36-37)

How we pray, and what we pray for, literally has the power to ensure our salvation.

Elder Uceda said"Jesus prayed intensely and spoke with His Father. “It came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened” ( Luke 3:21). When you pray, do you feel like heaven is opened? When was the last time you felt that connection with heaven?”

I’ve been studying the principles of the 12-step program as taught in the Book of Mormon with the help of a beautiful workbook called He Did Deliver Me From Bondage.  In this particular process each day there is a scripture from the Book of Mormon relating to that week’s step and a writing prompt to help participants “capture” the words of Christ which the Holy Ghost relays to them personally concerning the principle in their lives. 

Regarding our treatment of personal revelation, Elder Richard G. Scott has said “Inspiration carefully recorded shows God that His communications are sacred to us. Recording will also enhance our ability to recall revelation. Such recording of direction of the Spirit should be protected from loss or intrusion by others.”  The sacred process of writing out God’s words to me has deepened my communication with Him immensely. 

About a week ago I was studying Jacob 4:10, which says “Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.”  The prompt for this particular scripture is “To counsel means to give advice.  Often when we pray we seek more to advise the Lord in what we think He should do for us or others (“Dear Lord, please bless so-and-so that such-and-such will happen”), than to listen for His counsel or advice.  Write in the form of a question something that has been troubling you, addressing it to the Lord.  Then listen and record the answer you receive.”  

After I read the scripture and the prompt, I hesitated to do it.  I can’t even analyze or understand why, especially since writing questions to God and recording his answers has been a habit of mine for several years, off and on, but for some reason this one made me uneasy.  I think perhaps I didn’t want to face the despair I felt about certain issues.  Later that day, after the kids were in bed and I was getting ready for sleep, I pulled out my journal and wrote.  I’d like to read to you from that entry.

“Heavenly Father, what do I need to do to have meaningful peace? To have order?  Everything feels so chaotic.” And this is what God clearly told me. “Listen.”  And then He said “Pray every morning on your knees to recognize and follow ALL promptings of the spirit.”

In order to follow all the promptings of the Holy Ghost, I would need to surrender my will unto the Father, as Jesus Christ always did.  Elder Uceda discussed this characteristic of Christ in his talk "...today He teaches you and me to pray as we see Him in our minds praying in Gethsemane and saying, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” ( Luke 22:42 ). When you pray, do you really, truly want that “not my will, but thine, be done?"

How can we do that, surrender our will to God’s?  Sister McConkie teaches one valuable way.  “When we pray with faith, the Holy Ghost can guide our thoughts so that our words harmonize with the will of God.” If we pay attention to the Holy Ghost he will tell us what we should pray for in the very moment we are praying.

Coming back to my personal experience, I felt so grateful that God had given me such a small, simple but powerful direction.  So I started to do it, get out of bed onto my knees and ask that I could have the courage and strength through the grace of his atonement to recognize and follow all the promptings he would give me that day, because I knew without his power there was NO WAY I could do it.  I had been doing it for 4 days and was pretty pleased with the Lord and myself.  I felt so much gratitude for Him helping me do hard things.  I was sitting on the couch in the early evening and I noticed an impression from the Lord “get on your shoes and go for a run.”  To explain a little bit, I’d taken up triathlon after James was born, and lost a ton of weight and learned to really love running, but after I had William life got really crazy.  So I haven’t exercised regularly in 2 years, and I hadn’t gone for a run for 3 months.  So when God told me to go for a run I thought “really, God?”  And he said yes.  Just right then I remembered that we had a super late power bill and that our power was going to be cut off in a few days if I didn’t take care of it.  So I said to God “I’ll go for a run after I pay that bill.” I was hoping that maybe if I put it off a bit I could muster up the energy to go.  I got on the computer and I paid the bill, and I still didn’t really want to go run, so then I did some budgeting, and checked my email, and by then it was dark.  Ugh.  No good.  So I decided not to go for a run, but I felt really awful about it.   The next morning when I prayed, as always, for the grace to hear and obey his promptings, I asked for forgiveness.  “Father, I’m so sorry I didn’t obey that prompting yesterday.  I knew it was a prompting, and I just didn’t want to do it, and I’m so sorry.”  Then God said “It’s ok.  Get on your shoes and go for a run now.”  And I thought “Oh boy.”  I said “Father, I really, really want to do your will.  But I really, really don’t want to go for a run.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.  Please, please give me the grace to get up off my knees and change into running gear.  I cannot do it by myself. I’ll do it if you just give me the grace.”  And I knelt there for a bit, and then I got up and changed and went for a run, and it was wonderful.

President Eyring has said:“I have had prayers answered. Those answers were most clear when what I wanted was silenced by an overpowering need to know what God wanted. It is then that the answer from a loving Heavenly Father can be spoken to the mind by the still, small voice and can be written on the heart.”

Sister McConkie shared a quote by Melvin J. Ballard: “It is not only important that we shall know how to pray, but it is equally important that we shall know how to receive the answer to our prayer, to be discerning, to be alert, to be able to see with clear vision and understand with clear intention God’s will and purpose concerning us.”  It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus Christ, when teaching his disciples to pray, told them to “enter into thy closet.”  N. Eldon Tanner taught “First, as the Lord said, the door must be shut against the distractions of the world so that we may concentrate on what we are saying to our Father in heaven.” I would add, and concentrate on what He is saying to us.  This type of sacred, intense prayer is training with the Holy Ghost.  Such training strengthens our ability to communicate with God in such a way that we can maintain that link with Heaven even in moments of confusion, fear, noise, or emergency. 

Going back to the scripture by Nephi.  “...for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.”

(2 Ne 31:19)

As we pray with real intent, we engage with all three members of the Godhead as we speak to Heavenly Father, reminding ourselves of our relationship to him and acknowledging his supremacy; in the name of Jesus Christ as author of our salvation, advocate to the Father, and source of grace and healing; and through the Holy Ghost, who speaks the words of Christ, that we may have true two-way communication.   

It is through praying always (being constantly connected with and obedient to His Spirit, the Holy Ghost, which tells and shows us all things we should do) and relying wholly on the merits (power) and mercy (forgiveness) of Christ that we come to know and love God the Father and His Son, are born again, becoming a daughter or son of Christ, put off the natural man and become a saint, and receive eternal life. 

I would like to close with a quote from Sister McConkie’s talk.  “When the Lord comes again, will He find a people who know how to pray in faith and who are prepared to receive salvation? “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  We are children of a loving Heavenly Father, and we may enjoy personal communion with Him when we pray “with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ”  and then act in accordance with the answers we receive by the promptings of the Holy Ghost. In faith we pray, we listen, and we obey, that we might learn to become one with the Father and the Son.” 

I add my testimony to hers, and say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.