What Heaven See's in You

Gathering Daily

Do you remember the great lesson the Lord taught the children of Israel in providing manna for them which they had to gather daily? Exodus 16:4 says: "Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate (or portion) every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no."

They had been slaves in Egypt and had forgotten their relationship with the Lord. To teach them and prove them, the Lord required that they gather the manna every day except over the Sabbath. They could not collect it or store it. It had to be gathered every day. Spirituality, that condition of closeness with the Lord through his Spirit, is like manna to us. We cannot live well without it, and it must be gathered every day. It isn’t enough to have known, to have read, to have given, to have prayed, to have obeyed.

“If ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” (Alma 5:26). I hope so:)

Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time!

Clip from a great talk by Elder Quentin L. Cook:

Gaining Peace

"Peace is the gift of God. Do you want peace? Go to God. Do you want peace in your families? Go to God. Do you want peace to brood over your families? If you do, live your religion, and the very peace of God will dwell and abide with you, for that is where peace comes from, and it doesn't dwell anywhere else. . . ."
(John Taylor, JD 10:56-58.)

Accepting Yourself

"We receive mixed messages today that self-love and a sense of self-worth are forms of selfishness and conceit. However, I know from my own experience that when I don't fully accept myself and all of my warts, blemishes, and imperfections, I am crippled in my charity toward God and my neighbors. Let me encourage you not to feel guilty as you aspire to appropriate self-love, which comes in part by honest self-knowledge and acceptance."
—Jeffrey R. Holland, On Earth As It Is in Heaven

Daily Vision for Families

"Where there is no vision, the family perishes. Our Eternal Father will renew our vision daily as we seek Him in prayer. He reaches His arms to us to assist us in our crossings over the chasms of life. He will be there to welcome us with our families."

—Ardeth Greene Kapp, "My Neighbor, My Sister, My Friend"

We Are Somebody

"As children of God, we are somebody. He will build us, mold us, and magnify us if we will but hold our heads up, our arms out, and walk with Him."
(Marvin J. Ashton, Faith)

Good Cheer

“It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him”

(Abraham Lincoln, 1862)

“Let thy heart be of good cheer before my face; and thou shalt bear record of my name….”

(D&C 112:4)

I hope you feel the Lords love for you engraved upon your hearts today, and help others to feel it too:)

Facts not Opinions

"The word of the Lord never comes to us as an opinion, no attempt is made to support it by argument, it comes as a definite, abstract statement of fact. So it is from the first words... to the last, the works of the Father are declared as facts, not theories."

—Elder Anthony W. Ivins Conference Report, April 1918-

Improving the Quality of your Prayers

Bishop H. Burke Peterson:
"As you feel the need to confide in the Lord or to improve the quality of your visits with him—to pray, if you please—may I suggest a process to follow:

• Go where you can be alone, go where you can think, go where you can kneel, go where you can speak out loud to him. The bedroom, the bathroom, or the closet will do.
• Now, picture Him in your mind’s eye. Think to whom you are speaking, control your thoughts—don’t let them wander—address Him as your Father and your friend.
• Now tell him things you really feel to tell Him—not trite phrases that have little meaning, but have a sincere, heartfelt conversation with Him. Confide in Him, ask Him for forgiveness, plead with Him, enjoy Him, thank Him, express your love to Him, and then listen for his answers.
• Listening is an essential part of praying. Answers from the Lord come quietly—ever so quietly. In fact, few hear His answers audibly with their ears. We must be listening so carefully or we will never recognize them. Most answers from the Lord are felt in our heart as a warm comfortable expression, or they may come as thoughts to our mind. They come to those who are prepared and who are patient.
  (“Conference Excerpts,” New Era, Jan. 1974, 6)

Daily Priorities

I worked in a temple office in Europe for several years and so I would have to show my temple recommend to enter each day. One week I wasn’t at work from Friday until Tuesday, so my recommend hadn’t been used between those days, and when I got to work on Tuesday morning I had to have a bit of a hunt for it in my wallet, as it had worked it’s way down to underneath my bank card and library card, those being the cards I had used most recently.

I thought about that in relation to the account of the children of Israel in the wilderness, and how the Lord provided substance for them during their journey. It says:

“Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.”
(Exodus 16:4)

The Lord could’ve rained enough ‘bread from heaven’ to last a week or a month at a time, but chose to only send down enough to last the day. He wants us to remember Him and have daily experiences where we know that we need Him, and that He will daily provide for us.

Whilst my recommend being under those two other cards bears no eternal significance, it just reminds me that it’s easy to sometimes put other things first in our lives. Life can get so hectic; we have meetings to go to, errands to run, family to support, friendships to develop, problems to solve, assignments to get done, callings to serve in etc. etc. etc., whilst these are 'good' things in and of themselves, if we are neglecting our personal relationship with the Saviour, developed mainly through personal prayer and scripture study - then application, it becomes more and more hidden, and life becomes harder and harder as a result - the good covers the great, instead of the great UNcovering the good.

So, I suppose what I am saying is that I hope that our daily priority will be our relationship with the Saviour, as all the other things really do take care of themselves, because He will take care of us if we do.

Undeveloped Film

I believe most of what we need to know is already within us.

When N. Eldon Tanner was made president of the West European Mission in the early 1960’s he visited the missionaries in France. He told them that they were not really taking to their investigators some new and undreamed–of doctrine. “No,” he said. “Instead, think of it this way: all these people were exposed to the gospel long before you or they came to this earth. It’s all these in their minds and spirits, like undeveloped photographic film, your job is just to develop the film.”

When I was a little girl we used to have a darkroom in our attic as one of my brothers was very much into photography. I used to love going up there and watching the film develop in the dark. Just like an undeveloped photographic film, it seems to me that the way that we are developed is often in a ‘darkroom’ also. The times of greatest growth seem to happen at times of our greatest need or trial. It’s those times that we realise what is really within us, and what our relationship with our beautiful Saviour is.

I am so grateful for the times in the dark, but also for the times in the Light which is when I can fully appreciate what has developed within me.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).

May the Light shine in your hearts today.

He sees our Successes!

"God not only forgives our failures; he sees successes where no one else does, not even ourselves. Only God can give us credit for angry words we did not speak; temptations we resisted, patience, and gentleness little noticed and long forgotten by those around us. Such good deeds are never wasted and not forgotten, because God gives them a measure of eternity."

-Rabbi Harold Kushner-

It is so easy to be self-critical and unfortunately, all too often, we have a perfect memory when it comes to our shortcomings and mistakes, even replaying them over over again in our minds. It is good to know that Heavenly Father has a perfect memory of our efforts to improve and the untold desires of our hearts too. Thank goodness He loves us perfectly and sees who we really are!

God vs. Santa Claus

This is a great quote I got from Valerie's blog, by a Rabbi called Harold Kushner:

"We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don't have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now I'm sorry, that's not God, that's Santa Claus."

Try Again

Another thought by Neal A. Maxwell:

"Often we tally our failures with great precision and self-depreciating fanfare while failing to inwardly records our successes. For instance, after a disappointing personal act of expressing our ego we may exclaim inwardly, "I have done it again!" Clearly, even God's long-suffering cannot excuse us; nevertheless He still waits for us to move from recognition on through to remission. "His arm is extended to all people who will repent" (Alma 19:36). He thereby provides fresh "space" and encouragement "all the day long" (2 Nephi 28:32). He is ever encouraging us to regroup and try again. And there are no restrictive office hours for receiving returning prodigals - night and day He awaits us!."

Have a lovely day.

After All We Can Do

Henry B. Eyring: “That urge to rise above yourself is a recognition of your need for the Atonement to work in your life, and your need to be sure that it is working. After all you can do, after all your effort, you need confidence that the Atonement is working for you and on you.” (To Draw Closer to God)

2 Nephi 25:23
“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”

I do hope you have a lovely day, and that you will gain an increased confidence that the Atonement is working for you, and on you, for after all we can do - we need Him so much.

Stargazing

“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
(Genesis 1:16)

I was thinking about these words yesterday, and the different types of lighting that Heavenly Father made for us on this beautiful earth. I thought how it’s similar to how our lives are lit as well. Mostly we feel the warm glow from the sun, there are times though when darkness is more apparent to us than light and we wait for that time to pass. It is never so dark though that light is still not seen, even if it’s just a sliver in the night-sky of our lives.

I used to love going for walks at night-time, things just seem more peaceful then, and I love looking at the stars. Something I noticed one time was that as I came away from the distracting street-lighting I could see the stars more clearly. I then noticed that if I stood still, and looked up at the sky, the stars became visible to me, and the more I looked the more I saw.

Sometimes it’s like that in life also, we all go through periods of darkness, when we don’t feel the Son’s rays warming us as strongly. It’s during those times that we need to step away from any distractions, and look up, and if we are still we will see that we have not been left alone, but that throughout the darkness are sprinkled moments of hope & joy, which are ours to enjoy, if only we would see.

I know our Heavenly Father loves us, He watches over us and He will never, ever, fail us.

The Hearts Longing

"The gospel of Jesus Christ answers the heart's longing for fulness. The Father of our spirits knows where we belong— where our core being can say, "I was made for this." To that end, God would have us fulfill our deepest eternal yearnings and know the meaning of our very existence."

—Bruce C. Hafen, Marie K. Hafen, Belonging Heart

Looking Beyond Imperfections

Mormon 8:12
"And whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these.Behold, I am Moroni; and were it possible, I would make all things known unto you."

When I read this the other day I recognised what great principle is shown here that can be applied to our relationships. It is sometimes so easy to notice the imperfections in each other (but also ourselves), but if these imperfections become our focus it shadows us seeing who people really are and missing out on the "greater things" than these.

The people who have motivated me the most in my life are the ones who look beyond my weaknesses, and see meas God sees me. So, that is my invitation you today -to look beyond the imperfections, and allow yourself to see the greater things which are available to those who do.

Who we belong to

"..Those who have chosen to 'come unto Christ' soon realize that they do not 'own' themselves. Instead, they belong to Him. We are to become consecrated along with our gifts, our appointed days, and our very selves. Hence, there is a stark difference between stubbornly "owning" oneself and submissively belonging to God."

—Neal A. Maxwell
Ensign, November 1990