Last night, we had a special guest for a church meeting, Elder David A. Bednar.
Can I just say "WOW!"?
It was an incredible opportunity not only to hear him speak, but also a General 70, Elder Ian S. Adern. Both men were inspirational.
It was a different type of meeting. They didn't do the normal talks about what we needed to do, but instead, they fielded questions. They gave us a special phone number to text questions to and the whole thing was spectacular.
I took several things away from this meeting and I'll share two of them with you that especially impacted me.
- We need to pray differently. We need to think about our roles with Heavenly Father differently. More specifically, we need to think of Agency and Receiving the Holy Ghost differently. Agency isn't just the ability to choose right from wrong. By choosing to be members of our church, we are agents of the Lord. We need to use our agency to be directed by the Lord. Instead of praying "Heavenly Father, please help those who aren't here today to be able to come to church next week", we need to pray "Heavenly Father, when I leave this building today, I'm going to seek out those members who weren't here today. Please send the Spirit with me to help me discover what I need to do to help them." This is us using our Agency from the Lord to do things that he wants us to do. This was the example Elder Bednar used. This plays into Receiving the Holy Ghost. When we become members of the church, hands are laid upon our heads and we are told to receive the Holy Ghost. This is where the above Agency comes back into play. The Priesthood Authority that gave us that gift is giving us permission to use the gift. When we're given a gift a Christmas, just taking the box isn't receiving the gift. Receiving the gift is actually opening the box, taking the present out and using it. So, (this is how I interpreted this) we have to go out and seek the Holy Ghost. If we pray in a similar manner to the above, and then go out and do what we said we were going to do, that's using the gift of the Holy Ghost. If we want to have His companionship, we have to seek it out. That totally puts a different spin on how I've been thinking about things lately. More on that in a minute.
- Balance. This is directly quoted from my notes: "Balance is an illusion. If you are seeking balance in your life, stop it. Forget it. There is no such thing." Elder Bednar went on to say that life is full of things that we need to get done, whether it be spiritual or temporal. Both areas need taken care of. It's kinda like the guy who spins plates on top of the little poles. If you watch him, he works hard to get all of the spinning plates up on the sticks and stay there. As he gets more plates going, he has to go back and spin some of the ones he already has up, so they don't stop spinning, fall and break. Never, at any time, does he have every single plate spinning at the same speed. Sometimes, there's too many plates and a couple fall.
We need to stop with the illusion that we are able to have all the plates spinning at the same speed.
The reason why these stuck out to me was because they were what I needed to hear. I thought about what I pray for almost every morning. "Heavenly Father, please give me the strength and endurance to do the things that I need to do today."
Sounds good, right? Right. So, yesterday, for example, I had this long list of things to do. Going to the above meeting was one of them. Walking the dog, getting gas in the car, getting a couple things at the grocery store, etc. etc., those were all on there too. As you can guess, writing was right at the top, given the NaNo and everything. I got up, stayed up and tried to do everything that needed done... in my opinion.
I. Just. Couldn't. Get. To. Writing.
By four o'clock, I had written about 800 words. Well, that's some, but it's not the 5k minimum that I was insisting on, nor was it the 10k that I really wanted to insist on, nor was it the dream 12k. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
At that time, I'm heading out the door to help my daughter and a couple other of the young women from church to pick up flags that we put out for Veteran's Day. Okay, it needs done. Tyson's at work, so we won't be able to go to the church meeting at seven like we had planned and I'll be able to sit and write, right?
Ehhh. (That was a negative buzzer sound)
Tyson texts me. He's on his way home. He'll be able to go to the meeting after all. WHAT!? Instant stress.
Picking up flags took longer than expected. Tyson was hemming about going to the meeting because he thought it was at six and we wouldn't have enough time to get cleaned up and get across town. I had a glimmer of hope that I would be able to write.
But, I couldn't lie to him. The meeting was at seven. So, with much internal grumbling from me, we cleaned up and went.
Yeah, here's the truth: What I thought I needed to do and what Heavenly Father thought I needed to do were two totally different things.
Here's what I really did yesterday: Took care of the dog, supported my children in the services they're doing for the church, prepared my vehicle and my refrigerator for the upcoming week, spoke to one of my sons over Skype that needed loving support, spent much needed time alone with my husband and listened to the words of the Lord.
Yeah, okay. Thank you Heavenly Father, I needed that... like you know I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment