Many Adventures

Ok. I have had a series of adventures culminating in today's thoughts. However, due to the adventures, I am worn out and will have to write again later or on my other blog.

However, really briefly, today I was touched by the messages of trials that can be aided by families, and how we are put here with the people we are because they are in the best position to help us. 

I have also thought about how we can be like mosquitoes to God. This may sound degrading, and no--the analogy doesn't fit for much, but let me explain my thoughts:

I recently went camping. In my tent, mosquitoes came in. Then they endlessly tried to fly out- of the roof. This naturally couldn't happen. And since I didn't want them in either, I tried to get them out by directing them to the door. Which, if they followed, they were given what they desired.

This can be like prayer. Sometimes we get stuck, and if we would follow God's counsel, we can get what we "want," freedom to move, to grow, to live. But because it comes in a way we don't expect, we can easily get trapped.

That's all I have time for today, but you get a very brief overview anyway :)

Humility in Practice

Today I remembered and have felt impressed to write this post as a background to an upcoming post for my other blog, Remember. The topic I want to write about must be done delicately because it is on the different faces of pride and how humility shapes us to allow God to mold us into who we truly can become.

Let me be clear, humility shapes us, which then helps us allow God to shape our eternal characters.

We briefly talked about humility in our Sacrament meeting, how having a broken heart and a contrite spirit allow us to repent, and how that is how we become as God. It was an incredible meeting.

Something happened to me today - I have been studying Isaiah lately in the scriptures, and one of the concepts is that revelation comes by small and simple things, that it comes "here a little, there a little" it's very poetic and I love it. I realized that this big task I've been given, to "give" God the control in my life, has been coming slowly and surely. This day, I learned that I don't quite yet have the desire to fully follow God's "schedule" for my life. I now want to have that desire, but there is still a rebellious corner of my heart that wants it my way, that wants it to be something I can control and maneuver between on my own.

As I've been learning the past few weeks, I am on my way to a truly contrite and humble spirit. I am working and I am improving. The Spirit guides me to become better and has been helping me daily realize things that can help.

Here a little, there a little. It's been amazing to watch the pieces of my progression fall into place with me just asking for help and desiring to become better. He listens and He helps me, always.

There are different types of pride in the balance of life. It all comes down to the priorities in our hearts, whether they be on God's truth, or whatever else we place as more important. God lives, and He will help you put the pieces together and become better, one step at a time, if you'll let Him.

Yesterday: July 15, 2012

So, I am late at writing this and I have 3 minutes before I have to go.

Yesterday was amazing. I felt the Spirit so strongly in Sacrament especially. I learned/remembered that repentance is a process, and that I can be faithful all the time. I don't have to plan for me to fail in faith. See, for awhile I'd been 'planning' to have a hard time having faith, just in an attempt to be rational about the whole thing, because I am not perfect, and so it would make sense. Well, yesterday, I heard very clearly that I am not to plan like that anymore. I am to plan that I will always be faithful, I will always have the help of the Savior, and though I will fall short, I will not fall, and I will not plan on it in my prayers or in my heart.

Repentance is definitely a process, one that I probably won't notice the differences in my character, but they are there. I can enjoy the fruits of repentance as I move forward.

Keep working hard, you'll get there! Sorry, I am out of time, but I hope you get the idea.

Trusting and Progressing

First, this is a detailed outline of talk that I gave today. It doesn't expound on everything, but it gives you a pretty good idea.

Main Point: Trusting in God even when others, and maybe even yourself, tell you otherwise… Having faith and trust in His promises to overcome fear and weakness that prevent progression	Scriptures: Proverbs 3:5-6 D&C 50:40-42 1 Cor. 10:13 Alma 5:33-38, 12:9-14, 32:21-42
-1 What does it mean to trust + why -2 How do we trust -3 Rationality -4 Others’ opinions	Examples and quotes, see below Testimony-

1 What does it mean to trust + why

Briefly, it is letting go of that fear, and it is so we can move forward, with faith that God is there, letting go of the need to know everything and just moving forward.

-2 How do we trust?

Elder Packer talks about how we need inspiration, and we are commanded to pray so that we are able to receive it.  It is a plea from our Father to help us get help.

President Eyring, Mountains to Climb: “Many of you are now passing through physical, mental, and emotional trials that could cause you to cry out as did one great and faithful servant of God I knew well. His nurse heard him exclaim from his bed of pain, ‘When I have tried all my life to be good, why has this happened to me?’”

“The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? Therefore, hold on thy way….therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”

1 Cor. 10:13

"Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come." -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

"So work hard, and pray, but do not worry" Howard W. Hunter

"Peace in this life is based upon faith and testimony."
James E. Faust

"You have a heritage honor it. You posses a testimony share it. You will face temptations withstand it. You know the truth live it."
— Thomas S. Monson

“Sometimes we let our thoughts of tomorrow take up too much of today. Daydreaming of the past and longing for the future may provide comfort but will not take the place of living in the present. This is the day of our opportunity, and we must grasp it.” Thomas S. Monson
“In Search of Treasure,” Ensign, May 2003, 20.

-3 Rationality

Proverbs 3:5-6, Alma 32:21-42

This one can be hard. When you want something to be true so much, and you don’t have all the pieces in front of you, it is sometimes so incredibly hard to trust that He will give you the pieces at the right time. Keep going. Deal with what you can, put the pieces you have together.

Be curious, but doubt not! Always hold fast to faith and to the light you have already received. Because we see imperfectly in mortality, not everything is going to make sense right now. In fact, I should think that if everything did make sense to us, it would be evidence that it had all been made up by a mortal mind. President Uchtdorf

D&C 50:40-42

-4 Others’ opinions/perspectives

“Every man eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand. “And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye,” said Nephi, “for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words…” President Benson

It is very important that we not assume the perspective of mortality in making the decisions that bear on eternity! We need the perspectives of the gospel to make decisions in the context of eternity. We need to understand we cannot do the Lord's work in the world's way. –Maxwell “But from a small moment”

Having faith and trust in His promises to overcome fear and weakness that prevent progression

There have been times in my life, recently in fact, where I have felt backed up to that wall of faith. I have felt so alone and helpless, too weak to carry on by myself. Luckily, I am not alone. I was able to hold on to that desire to know my Savior better, to know that His promises are real, so in those dark times, I was able to cry to Him, and He heard and strengthened me, and helped me move forward, even though I still don't have all the answers to my questions, I can move forward in faith.

Testimony Quotes:

President Eyring, Mountains to Climb “It is never too late to strengthen the foundation of faith. There is always time. With faith in the Savior, you can repent and plead for forgiveness. There is someone you can forgive. There is someone you can thank. There is someone you can serve and lift. You can do it wherever you are and however alone and deserted you may feel.
“I cannot promise an end to your adversity in this life. I cannot assure you that your trials will seem to you to be only for a moment. One of the characteristics of trials in life is that they seem to make clocks slow down and then appear almost to stop.
“There are reasons for that. Knowing those reasons may not give much comfort, but it can give you a feeling of patience. Those reasons come from this one fact: in Their perfect love for you, Heavenly Father and the Savior want you fitted to be with Them to live in families forever. Only those washed perfectly clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ can be there."

“Wherever you now find yourself on the road of discipleship, you are on the right road, the road toward eternal life. Together we can lift and strengthen one another in the great and important days ahead. Whatever the difficulties confronting us, the weaknesses confining us, or the impossibilities surrounding us, let us have faith in the Son of God, who declared, 'All things are possible to him that believeth.'"
—Elder Neil L. Andersen

Let me [remind] you [of]that we so blithely say in the Church that life is a school, a testing ground. It is true, even though it is trite. What we don't accept are the implications of that true teaching—at least as fully as we should. One of the implications is that the tests that we face are real. They are not going to be things we can do with one hand tied behind our backs. They are real enough that if we meet them we shall know that we have felt them, because we will feel them deeply and keenly and pervasively. –Maxwell “But from a small moment”

If God chooses to teach us the things we most need to learn because he loves us, and if he seeks to tame our souls and gentle us in the way we most need to be tamed and most need to be gentled, it follows that he will customize the challenges he gives us and individualize them so that we will be prepared for life in a better world by his refusal to take us out of this world, even though we are not of it. In the eternal ecology of things we must pray, therefore, not that things be taken from us, but that God's will be accomplished through us. What, therefore, may seem now to be mere unconnected pieces of tile will someday, when we look back, take form and pattern, and we will realize that God was making a mosaic. For there is in each of our lives this kind of divine design, this pattern, this purpose that is in the process of becoming, which is continually before the Lord but which for us, looking forward, is sometimes perplexing. –Maxwell “But from a small moment” –Maxwell “But from a small moment”

“Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith.”

This topic was given to me that I may bear testimony before all that I know that He is faithful that promised help and happiness, and I know in whom I have trusted, even though the promises have not been fulfilled yet, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.