Choosing to believe

I wrote awhile back that I choose to believe the church is true.  Recently someone asked me how it’s possible to make a choice to believe something.  When the question was asked, my thought was that if I really don’t believe something is true, then I couldn’t just choose to believe it because I would always feel within myself that it’s a lie.  But as I have pondered on this question I realized that there are choices we make as we’re coming to our understanding as to what to believe.  I choose who/what to believe among the differing opinions.

I choose to believe the words of the First Presidency and 12 apostles.  These are 15 men who come from different backgrounds and professions and yet are able to be united when it comes to church doctrine and policy.  To me they are very wise and trustworthy.  I have been uplifted by their words every conference.  I trust their experience and counsel better than the words of those who have left the church and for whatever reason feel the need to share their type of logic.  I could understand their need to broadcast their doubts if what we are taught to believe in the church was evil.  But we are taught to be kind.  To love one another.  To serve one another.  To have hope.  Everything the church teaches, if followed would make the world a better place to be.  Those who have left the church don’t seem to be promoting anything better to replace it with.  They just seem intent on trying to tear it down and cause others to doubt.

I choose to believe the writings of scientists who believe in God rather than scientists who are atheists.  It seems no matter what the subject, there will be differing views and a person has to choose which of all the differing views he will believe.  I believe those that feel right, that have the potential to make my life better.  

I choose to believe the Book of Mormon is true, because of the way I feel when I read it.  I feel peace and I find insights that enrich my life and I can’t logically believe that Joseph Smith with the schooling he had, had the ability to come up with it himself.  I don’t believe it’s a myth.  I choose to believe that Joseph Smith really did see God and Jesus Christ and was led to establish the church of Jesus Christ on the earth as it was established during the time of Jesus Christ.  I choose to believe all the many testimonies of those who actually knew Joseph Smith in life and who claim that he was honest and that he had integrity rather than those who didn’t actually know him personally.

I choose to believe those things that leave me feeling light rather than those things that leave me feeling dark.  I choose to believe that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and has an interest in my life.  I have felt His spirit.  I choose to believe that spirit rather than the dark feeling that comes from those who choose not to believe.   So yes, I do choose to believe that the Church is true.

My Mission Statement

One day many years ago when I had many children at home, I was trying to come up with a mission statement for my life.  I remember spending hours on it, thinking about all the different roles I had such as wife, mother, child of god, homemaker, student, church member, friend.  I remember writing down the person I wanted to be in each role and setting goals that would help me to become that person.  It seems I worked on this for hours on the computer.  Then when I had almost finished, our computer crashed and I lost everything I had worked on.  In those days documents weren’t automatically saved, so I couldn’t get it back.  After spending all that time and putting my heart into it, I felt devastated to lose it all and have to start over.

I remember praying about what to do because I had really wanted to get it right, to be the person my Heavenly Father wanted me to be.  But as I sincerely prayed, the answer that came to my mind was something very simple.  My mission is to love God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind.  And to love my neighbor (everyone) as myself.  I wrote this on a card and put it where I could see it every day.  Unfortunately I didn’t always remember to look at it, and I’m still working on it, but I feel like it was a reminder that as we love God and love everyone around us, we will automatically do what He wants us to do and will be the person He wants us to be.  He is love.  That means love is a major part of who He is.  He loves all of us and I believe one of the major purposes of our being here in this earthly experience is to learn to love as He does.  And as we develop the ability to love Him completely and love others as He does, I believe everything else will fall into place.

Personal Revelation - Part 2

It can take a lifetime to learn perfectly how to receive and recognize personal revelation.  It takes faith and trust and experience as we learn how God talks to us.  If this is a subject in which you are very interested, I suggest you do as I did and study talks and books and scriptures on Personal Revelation because there are various ways that different people receive revelation.  This blog is about my experience with personal revelation.  I am far from perfect at it yet, but I have learned through the years that I am more likely to receive an answer I recognize, if I go to God in faith and humility, truly willing to do what he wants me to do.

We need to remember that the voice of the spirit is still and small.  That means it's easier to feel his voice when we are in a quiet place and relaxed.  For me it works best if I don’t start talking immediately after kneeling but quiet my thoughts and try to feel the spirit before I begin praying.  When I don’t wait to feel his spirit it sometimes feels like I’m calling someone but start talking before I finish dialing the number.  In the beginning this would sometimes take 5-10 minutes or more.  For this purpose I always kneel on a pillow so that I am comfortable.  Otherwise my thoughts may go to my discomfort rather than feeling the spirit.  In the beginning I found that concentrating on my breathing helped me to quiet my thoughts.  As I have become better at recognizing the spirit, it now usually only takes a few seconds.  

When I am completely ready and listening, His voice can then speak to my mind and to my heart sometimes actually guiding my prayer. My prayers are more meaningful as I speak from my heart those things that I'm really thankful for and then those things I'm concerned about or need help with.  I try not to say the same things every time in the same way.  If after I ask a question, I wait and just listen, thoughts will come to my mind. Then if I ask if that’s the answer, the spirit gives me a feeling of peace and assurance if it’s the right answer.  If it’s not the right answer I don’t get that assurance, and I will wait until a different thought comes to me and ask again.  Sometimes I have found that the thought was incomplete and I needed to ponder on it some more to get the full answer.

I have also learned that it sometimes takes more than just a few minutes on my knees to get an answer.  I discovered that praying for at least 15 minutes or more at a time would help me connect with God better and though it was hard at first, I loved how I felt when I was taking the time to really communicate with Him.  When I still had lots of kids at home and had a pressing need to talk to my Heavenly Father during the day, occasionally I would leave the kids with my husband or older child and drive to the back of an empty parking lot where I could pray vocally and cry and pour my heart out to Him.  Sometimes it took an hour or so to finally get to the place where I was in tune and ready to receive the answers I was seeking.   Sometimes I would pray vocally while I was driving somewhere alone in the car (if I didn’t have to think too hard about my driving of course!)  I find that praying vocally can be really helpful and meaningful.  Sometimes the answer will come as I’m reading the scriptures, when a verse will pop out at me with an insight I hadn’t thought of before.  And sometimes it takes several days of pondering and meditating before the answers come, but if I’m patient, they always come in the Lord’s time. 

And sometimes we have to learn from false revelation how to discern between our own emotions and the spirit.  This has happened to me from time to time through the years, and I admit it was discouraging to me but it was also a learning experience.  This happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I was doing Family History.  I was attaching sources and knew that I should be able to receive the spirit to help me with this work so I asked for revelation to know if a certain source should be attached to the family I was working on.  I felt emotion, and immediately thought that was a yes answer and went ahead and attached it.  Then I felt like I should look at the source closer and discovered it was for a black man, and both of the parents I was working on were white!  I then realized that what I felt wasn’t the spirit.  It was emotion because I had such a deep desire to have the help of the spirit in doing my Family History. I then remembered what it felt like to me when I truly have felt the spirit.  I would feel peace, joy and a deep assurance that it was right.  Looking back, I realized that that isn’t how I felt.  I'm just grateful that I listened well enough to know I needed to take a second look at the source because I didn't feel the assurance that it was right. I am still learning how to discern better between my own emotions and the spirit of God.

I have had so many experiences with personal revelation that they have strengthened my testimony that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and is interested in the details of my life.  I feel that I can trust Him because when I follow the promptings he gives me, things always turn out well.  When I have a concern, and He gives me a feeling of peace, I know I don’t need to worry about it any more.  This happened when I was worried about one of my teenagers who didn’t come home at the time expected.  After praying for them, I felt the peace and knew they were safe and would come home soon, which they did. His spirit has felt to me like a warm blanket wrapped around me on a cold night.  I have felt His love.  I feel like He knows me better than I know myself and knows what experiences I need for my highest good and development.  I'm grateful for this understanding because it gives me peace and joy and allows me to relax and trust in Him when trials come.  I have the assurance that he will lead me to know what to do and everything will turn out okay.  I can’t imagine living without the help of His spirit guiding me through this life.

Personal Revelation - Part 1

My husband and I were reading in 1st Nephi recently after Lehi told his family about his dream of the Tree of Life.  Nephi then went to the Lord to ask about what the dream meant.  When he came back from receiving his answers, he found his brothers, Laman and Lemuel arguing about what the dream meant.  When Nephi asked them if they had asked God to know for themselves the meaning of the dream, they said that they hadn't because they didn't believe God would answer them.  I wonder how often people give up and decide that God doesn’t talk to them (or he doesn’t exist) because they haven't learned yet how to recognize the voice of God, or like "doubting" Thomas they can't believe until they can see God for themselves to know he's really there. Jesus told Thomas that those who didn't see him but believed the witness of others were more blessed than those who saw him and believed. In this blog post and the next one I want to share a little of my experience in learning how to recognize the voice of the spirit.  Perhaps it can be a help to someone.

Growing up I never got into the habit of having a kneeling personal prayer more than once a day, and that was always just before climbing into bed.  As a result my prayers were quite routine and quick because I was tired and ready to go to bed.  I believed that prayer was an important thing to do because I believed what I was taught at home, at church and in the scriptures, but I didn't really know the best way to do it.  I continued this way of praying throughout my childhood, youth and into my marriage, of course adding in some prayers for when times were tough, but I didn’t know how to recognize answers to my prayers.

When we had three small children, I was called to be the Relief Society President in our ward.  Through inspiration I had to choose counselors, and I was amazed that I was able to feel an assurance of which sisters should be my counselors as I went through the ward list.  I was also responsible for making visiting teaching assignments.  I knew that these assignments were meant to be inspired, so I spent late hours after the children were asleep, praying over those assignments and rearranging and rearranging them until I felt peace that it was okay.  This experience gave me some insight as to what prayer is supposed to be like. It was more than just a ritual to accomplish, but rather a conversation with God.  It meant waiting for God to answer rather than just closing the prayer and jumping into bed.

I wanted to have more of this type of relationship with Father in Heaven, so through the following years I started reading books and articles on personal revelation by general authorities and listening to conference talks on the subject.  I even traveled to Utah to attend BYU Education Week and had the opportunity to listen to others who had some inspired words on how to pray and recognize answers to prayer.  As I gradually started adding these things to my way of praying I found that indeed my relationship with God became closer and I was able to recognize more consistently answers to my prayers.

I knew by then that I should be praying both morning and night but as a young mother with lots of children, it was hard to have a morning prayer because my children would wake me up in the morning needing my attention.  But I remember praying often during the day when problems came up, or running to my bedroom for a prayer when I was upset.  At that time I was still learning how to listen for answers, but just the act of praying caused me to calm down and feel more peaceful so I could handle the situation better and little by little I started getting insights on what to do when I was having problems with a child or a situation.  I also made a goal to pray two times during the day instead of just my evening prayer.  It usually ended up being during "quiet time" the hour or so a day when my children were in their rooms napping or reading or playing quietly.  It was actually my time to relax and be ready for the second half of the day.

Gradually through the years my prayers have become more meaningful and I have learned how to more easily recognize the spirit.  I have learned to trust God and know that He loves me and wants the best for me. This knowledge has been a great blessing in my life in helping me have a happier marriage and be a better mother.  It has also helped me fulfill all of the many church callings I have had. It has helped in every aspect of my life even though I haven’t been perfect at it.  In my next blog post I will share some of the things I've learned that have helped my prayers become more of a conversation with God rather than just a monologue on my part and some things that have helped me to recognize answers to prayer. I will also share an experience I had with false revelation and what I learned from it.

Learning

I love the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  In the 13th article of faith it says “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous and in doing good to all men; indeed we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things and hope to be able to endure all things.  If there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

I love that the Church teaches us to to be good, honest people who serve one another in love, and encourages learning and creativity.  One thing I love to do is read and study and learn.  Several years ago I took an online course through UVU which was an Introduction to Natural Health and Healing.  It opened my eyes to a whole new world which was fascinating to me!  Some of the topics covered that I really enjoyed was the Power of the mind, Aromatherapy, Energy fields, Tai Chi, Therapeutic Touch, and the Effects of light, color and music on the body.  From there, I found more books on the subjects that really interested me.  I enjoyed reading books by authors such as Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and Bruce Lipton.  I didn’t believe every word of their books, but much that they wrote gave me things to think about.

My Dad gave me a father’s blessing many years ago in which he gave me the gift of discernment.  This gift has been wonderful as I have studied subjects that might be considered controversial by some.  I was able to reject those concepts that didn’t feel right and ponder more on the concepts that did feel right.  What I loved was when I would be reading the scriptures or a General Conference talk and a concept that I had been studying would come up only in different words.  I can remember as I read those books, wondering why the church didn’t teach those concepts that seemed so good and true, but then realized that many of the concepts are in the scriptures or words of the apostles and prophets of the church, just in different words.

I love the words “If there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”