Hey there everybody welcome back to another episode of Redeemed Through His Blood. Scott and David Durfey here as always. How's it going, Dave? Good to see you, Scott. Good to see you. As you can see everybody else out there. I knew too. Remember Miss Julie Romper Room? No. Miss Julie Romper Room. It was a thing on TV when I was a kid and at the end it was like for kids and then at the end she would look through this magic looking glass and she could see all the kids out in TV land.
Wow. That's awesome. I wish I had Miss Julie's glass. We should do a zoom sometime. Yeah we could do that. We could maybe get a glimpse of it. Yeah that would be fun. Anyway. Yeah. Hey gang. Hope you're all doing well. Thanks for watching. We're going to be back next week and I'll mention it again for those of you.
You've noticed that we're not in a course, we're in kind of a little course right now, but we're not doing the Divine Gift of Forgiveness course as we're anticipating a mission call at some point in the future. Now it hasn't started yet so don't bombard us with emails about, hey where they going and stuff like that. But it'll be coming soon. They'll be going on a mission soon and when that happens we wanted to not be in the middle of the Divine Gift of Forgiveness.
At least I didn't want to be in the middle of the Divine Gift of Forgiveness left with a load of finishing out a season. So we're just taking gospel topics. They have a direct correlation to the book, the Divine Gift of Forgiveness. I think that we'll actually make reference to that again today. But we invite you to send your questions and comments. If there's a topic that you would like for us to address or at least allude to, make comment around, please let us know.
You can do that at heredeemsusatgmail.com. Dave, last week. So what would you title this course that we're in? I think I would. Well, did we title it? You did. Well I titled the, yeah I guess I did, but a course on personal revelation and the ten keys. Ten keys to personal revelation. To receiving. There you go. To receiving personal revelation. You can't leave that part out. Because it is a receiving thing. Yeah, it's a gift. Don't just, you don't just wake up and have it.
It requires receiving. Can't control it. Can't be manipulated. I said that last week, but you can't control it. It's a gift. You gotta receive the gift. You can only qualify for the gift. You don't give yourself the gift. You don't just wake up and it's there. It comes from the Divine Source. And it does need to be received, which requires effort on our part. We've talked about that.
Yeah. Some of the effort we talked about from last week, you know, last week to just kind of recap what we talked about. We talked about identifying and replacing pavilions of selfish inappropriate motives, prideful desires, etc. We talked about increasing our personal purity and confidence in the presence of God by letting virtue govern our thoughts unceasingly, again, a reference to DNC 121.45.
And I loved again, Dave, the little phrase, watch what you view because what you watch will become your view. Or listen to or observe. Whatever we were just have to be more intentional. Scott about that. Yeah. Wherever we put our focus. I love. I think somebody once say, and this is not unique to whoever said it is just a principle that to whatever we focus on expands. We focus on our personal purity, our personal relationship with God. We get to a greater experience with that.
If we focus on our lack, then we get more lack. And that's just where it goes. Well, I talked about the crack of the door. Wherever we whatever we see that's inappropriate, Satan will try to expand. Yeah, true. It's not so much maybe that we expand it. But Satan will surely expand it. And that's true probably in the reverse.
If we would open ourselves up and seek to to see more spiritual things and more goodly things and things of light instead of things of darkness, the Lord will expand that as well. So anyway, undoubtedly, I you know what we look for is what we find. There's you know, there's that too. We just have to do better. Scott eliminating inappropriate thoughts, feelings, motives, and that is so influenced by what we choose to see to watch to listen to.
And I just hope people are experimenting with that, making some incremental again progress with that. And today, let's let's see when cover a couple more points of the 10 keys. Just before I do, let just a reminder, if you haven't already done it, one of our invitations last week was to go back and ask Heavenly Father to help us identify our pavilions that keep us from filling his spirit. Wondering how you did on that. Would love to hear some expressions or experiences around that.
Send those to the email again. He redeems us at gmail.com. But we'd love to hear that. And you know, these little invitations that we give these little action items, so to speak, are the things that really help us to align, Dave, with the things that we're going to be talking about this week. You know, we're going to move first off right into number five, right? So I'll just read it. Repent of the sins of omission.
Be intentional and diligent in using the instruments of grace such as scriptures, prayer, sacred art music, ordinances, fasting, magnifying callings, ministering and rendering service, etc. My small and simple things develop a daily plan of priorities. And you know, I think that pretty well lines up with, you know, kind of where we left it last week, Dave. Well, so many people, so many of us, so many people in the church seem to be more focused on sins of commission than sins of omission.
And I really think it's the sins of omission that maybe deserve greater attention in our lives, Scott, because if we could, if we could overcome the sins of omission in our lives and repent of those, I just don't think people have a really clear idea what or how, what it means or how we go about repenting of sins of omission. And I know the brethren really think that's important. In fact, one of my favorite talks on this topic was given by Elder Nellie Maxwell.
I mean, this was a topic, this was one of his key topics in several of his talks, actually. But he talks about the sins of omission and how they can really affect us spiritually. And he talks about certain deficiencies in our lives. And he says, these deficiencies, these deficiencies just illustrated are those of omission. Once the telestial sins are left behind and henceforth avoided, those are sins of commission, the focus falls ever more on the sins of omission.
These omissions signify a lack of qualifying fully for the celestial kingdom. Only greater consecration can correct these omissions, which have consequences, this is, this is the really good part here, which have consequences just as real as do the sins of commission. Many of us thus have sufficient faith to avoid the major sins of commission, but not enough faith to sacrifice our distracting obsessions. Isn't that awesome?
Yeah. We don't have enough faith to sacrifice our distracting obsessions or to focus on our omissions. When was that written? When was that? October 1995. 1995. You think that problem has kind of exponentially increased today? It really has with media, social media. Most omissions, he writes, occur because we fail to get outside ourselves. So we talked about the pavilions of selfishness. And so many of those pavilions are connected to sins of omission.
We do things because they tickle our ears or, you know, sounding brass and tinkling synths. Satan entices us with anything that makes us feel comfortable. And if it's not comfortable, then we don't, we don't want to do it. So things like studying the scriptures, Scott, sometimes that's not always easy or comfortable. Like saying, increasing the effectiveness of our prayers.
Maybe not just the effectiveness of our prayers, but praying at all or, or praying morning, noon and night or more often talking, communicating with our heavenly Father. These are all the sins of omission that if we would use what we've called on this podcast before, the instruments of grace that God has given us, if we, if we would do these things, use these gifts that God has given us, scriptures, prayer, inspired music and art, the things that will help us focus on Jesus Christ.
If we'll do, if we'll use those things as well as magnifying our callings and serving others and fasting and doing all the things that God has given us to increase our spirituality, if that would become our focus, we wouldn't have to focus so much upon repenting of the sins of commission or the biggies, as we might call them, if we would take care of the little sins of omission.
But believe me, Scott, and I know this is true personally in my own life, that the sins of omission can be just as damning or more damning than sins of commission. I have found, you have to, that in little ways, if we do not do what we need to do to keep the spirit of the Lord in our life, it's just as damning as doing something that keeps him from coming into our life. I mean, there's really no difference in that.
And I think that when President Nelson invites us to repent daily, he's not just talking about sins of commission, repenting of the sins of commission. He's telling us that daily we need to make small, simple ways we can progress by overcoming the sins of omission. We can do a better job with Come Follow Me. Just a little better.
We can just strive to do a little better and to have some sort of a plan to prioritize our life, our time, and not just go with the flow so that we are overcoming the little things in our life that keep us from fully filling the spirit of the Lord and receiving revelation in our life. This is really about, and let me rephrase that, there's an element of this, this really about self-deception too. Well, all sin is self-deception. That's Brother Warner. Okay, and that's what I'm talking about.
All sin is just self-deception. We're just lying under ourselves because we all have a conscience. We all have the light of Christ. And when we're not true to that, we're sinning. Exactly. And I just pulled his book off the shelf as you were talking about all this, you know, bonds that make us free by Terry Warner. Yep, C. Terry Warner, I think, actually.
You know, when he started developing this, I got to be part of a little, I was part of a group that kind of got to experiment with some of the rolling out of leadership and self-deception. And those concepts about self-deception and about how we deceive ourselves so that we can be justified in our behaviors and in our actions. But more importantly, in our lack of behaviors, in our lack of actions. So think about it.
You know, I deceive myself when I have a prompting to do something and I choose not to act on that prompting or to ignore that prompting. And the way that I do that, the way I justify my way through that is to horrible eyes or to make things bigger or about somebody or something else so that I can be justified in my self-deception and not participate in that poll that I am feeling that if I am not responding to, I'm committing a sin of omission.
And you're right, Dave, those sins of omission, they can, they are so sneaky, cunning, baffling and powerful. They can sneak up on us. And before we know it, we can be so deceived in our own self-involvement that we are totally unaware of Heavenly Father's children around us. That's really good, Scott. Well, again, I just want to reiterate what Melder Maxwell said.
The consequences of the sins of omission are just as real and can be just as damaging as the sins of omission can be just as real and damaging as the sins of commission. I mean, if Satan can get us to just not do certain things, then he's got us. And the next step is to get us to do certain things. So if all of us would really, maybe this is an invitation early on, if we would focus more on the sins of omission and start repenting of those daily, we would engage less in the sins of commission.
And this is quite a statement by Elder Maxwell, really. Most of us have sufficient faith to avoid the major sins of commission, but not enough faith to sacrifice our distracting obsessions or to focus on our omissions. What do you think he meant by that? Wow. That is powerful. That we don't have enough faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement to overcome these obsessions of distraction. And you know, really, Scott, when you put it that way, those distractions are something that we choose.
The obsessions of distraction are, again, is a choice that we spend time doing things that can distract us. I think there are so many great things about iPhones and Internet and all the tools that we have available to us, Scott, to bless our lives. But wow, it's amazing how a little game on my iPhone can be a major distraction to me. There's a couple of games I play on my phone, and there's been more than once. I'm confessing now to all of you.
There have been more than once where I thought, you know, I really should just go to the LDS library app and spend a little more time on that than playing this stupid game. And when I avoid that prompting, I'm committing a sin of omission. I'm omitting it. I'm ignoring it. I'm putting off. Procrastination, I think, is a major part of the sins of omission. But rather than to focus on the sins of omission, I just think it's really critical.
In this step, in step five, to focus more upon the instruments of grace. So again, let's just review that list of the instruments of grace, and let's talk about each of those. Okay, before we do that, I have a scripture that I just want to make reference to. This is from 2 Nephi 2821. And this is a situation, well, I'm just going to read it.
And others, he will pacify and lull them away into carnal security that they will say, all is well in Zion, yea, Zion prospereth all is well, and thus the devil cheateth their souls and leadeth them away to car, carefully, carefully, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. And that's what happens, David. You know, there's there's sense of commission that come about because of self deception. There's such sense of commission that come about.
Well, it's all self deception, but come about because of our own sin, or I don't even know how to articulate this best. But but this is a situation where we get lulled away into carnal security. Carefully, causing us to say all is well in Zion, yea, Zion prospereth. If it ain't broke, I don't need to read the scriptures today. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You know, I'm fine. I'm doing fine. I'm doing all right. And we continue to drift.
Yeah. I down the river of self self concede or self security or whatever. And on that and on a day in the future as we drift down that river, one day we wake up and we say, how did I get in these rapids? Did I get here and where am I? Yeah, we just don't even recognize it. So we out of here. So let's be careful of that. Let's be careful that we are not lulled away into carnal security, that when we start thinking everything in my life is great, everything's perfect. Everything's good.
I don't need to make changes. I don't need to seek out direction. I don't need to seek out to help to find my pavilions. It's when those kinds of things creep into our lives that this sense of omission, one of the ways that the sense of omission can really derail us. Okay. So these instruments of grace, the first one in the scriptures.
I wish, man, I, it has been amazing for me to watch Scott, but my sweetheart and I kind of planning going on a mission and my sweetheart's humility and insecurity in thinking of herself as a full-time missionary and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, I told her I made the mistake. I made the mistake of telling her we better start maybe increasing our scripture study just a little bit. And let's do, you know, not just come follow me, but let's do preach my gospel.
Let's start to, let's start studying preach my gospel. Start doing missionary stuff. Let's memorize my purpose, you know, the missionary purpose. You know, my purpose is to invite all to come unto Christ by helping them to receive the restored God. Anyway, so I made the mistake of a, I mean, boy, has she caught fire and it's just so sweet.
Oh, it's really so sweet to go home and to see her just immersed in the, in the come follow me or preach my gospel or she's reading all the conference talks and devouring them. And she's spending two or three hours a day in gospel study. And Scott, this is, this, I won't speak for, for, for me in, I'll just speak for her. Her words, not, not mind describing it, but her words is what an amazing difference that has made in her life.
Now I've observed it and you know, she was great before, but it is such a miracle, the power of the word and it's really blessed our home. I remember a little story by S. Dilworth young, S. Dilworth young. He was such a character. He was the presidency of the 70 when I was a missionary, Scott, and he was a powerful general authority. There are so many stories, funny stories about S. Dilworth young and he came to our mission and he got us all in a circle. Have I told you this story?
No, I haven't heard this story. So he got us all in a circle and this, this zone of missionaries and I remember sitting kind of halfway across the room from him so I could see him and had a good seat and he tells us that he wants to talk to us about the word of the Lord.
And he says, you know, my first wife, she was an amazing wife and I really loved her and we had all of our children together and she was so sweet and so often I would come home from work and I would smell homemade bread or I would smell cookies and I would be so happy. It would make me so happy. She was such a great cook and he said then she passed away sadly and I remarried and I have another wife and when I come home now, he said, I opened the door. I smell nothing.
But he said, I hear the word of the Lord. He said my wife, my new wife loves to listen to conference talks and she loves to listen to the scriptures on cassette tapes, which were brand new at the time by the way. Yeah, that was right after 8 tracks. And he said, I come home and I open the door and I hear the word of the Lord in my home. And he said, I have to tell you, I'd rather hear the word of the Lord. Then smell good bread. Then smell cookies.
I've never forgotten that house and the way he told it. And then he said, I want to teach you how to read the word of the Lord. So he turned to a missionary. I think we were reading something from Third Nephi as I remember and he said, I want you to read that verse and the missionary started to read and he got about four or five words out of his mouth as he's reading and Elder Young, President S. Dilworth Young cuts him off. No, Elder, that's not how you read the word of the Lord.
You don't come on. We can do better than that. And he turned to the next missionary. You try it and he cut him off and and he tried another and I remember thinking, wow, I'm glad I'm about halfway across from him. Glad I didn't try to sit next to him. This went on for maybe four or five missionaries. And then he said, let me read you the word of the Lord. It was different, Scott.
I'll never forget the voice and the reverence, the attention and focus and the sacred nature that he read the word of the Lord. It had a powerful effect on me. I've never forgotten it. I tried to change how I read the scripture from then on. And it's it's it was just one of those things that had a profound effect on the rest of my life as a seminary and institute teacher.
Whenever I would read the scriptures to my students, you know, I tried to model that and I think that I still try to do that in my own personal study. I reading the scriptures is an instrument of grace that God has given us to bless us with his spirit. It heals the wounded soul we learn in Jacob. It is the iron rod that leads us through the midst of darkness. We were given a promise by Nephi that if we would hold to the iron rod, we would never perish.
We've been given so many promises connected with reading the word of the Lord. Alma said it had a more powerful effect, the word of the Lord upon the mind of the people than the sword or anything else. Therefore we decided to try the virtue of the word of God. The word of God is the seed that one plants in their heart, which grows and becomes this great mighty faith or tree of righteousness from which one can pluck fruit. That's the seed. The seed is the word of God.
Faith cometh by hearing the word of God, Paul says. We cannot overstate how important it is for us to daily read the word of the Lord in scriptures, conference talks, preach my gospel, whatever it may be, Scott. And maybe we don't have time to always study it. Maybe we just have time to read a few verses. Maybe I heard one apostle say, I read a verse of scripture before my feet hits the floor every morning I wake up. I read a verse of scripture before my feet hits the floor.
If that's our habit and if that's how we get the word of the Lord in our lives, then we should try to do that. Or maybe we listen to it. So many people have the things that they put in their ears. What do you call those? Ear pods or whatever. You can listen to the word of the Lord. We have so many tools available to us now. The library, the app, wherever we are in the doctor's office or wherever we're waiting and we have time, we can read the word of the Lord.
We just have to be more intentional and focused on this instead of just ignoring this. Because if we don't, if we're not reading the scriptures daily, Scott, we are committing a sin of omission. That's how I feel about it at least. Right. Well, you know, we talk about read the scriptures and all of that. And that's important. Some people are going to be hearing this though and say, you know, when I read the scriptures, it's different than that though.
I don't, you know, if I just open the book and start reading the scriptures. So there's a difference between reading the scriptures and prayerfully approaching and reading the scriptures, which actually takes us to the second instrument of grace, prayer, right? Well, maybe someday we ought to teach a course on how to read the scriptures, how to study the scriptures. Exactly. You know, how to pay attention to certain ways in which we can more effectively study them.
That's where you're right, reading the scriptures. And I found that if I have always something in my life, you know, and this gives back to all of the things that we've talked about in the past, last episode, episode before, even the one before that, I think we talked about taking these inventories, these little spot check inventories in our lives.
You know, that's one of the things that Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me and that I am a big proponent of, especially with those that I sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous and in other things. But to take those personal inventories and find, okay, where am I just not quite 100% on track? Where is my will just a little bit out of alignment?
Or where are my actions out of alignment with what I say my will is with Heavenly Father's will, etc. And then if I pray before I enter into that experience of reading the scriptures and I just ask Heavenly Father to direct my thoughts and my minds and maybe even where in the scriptures I should be studying.
I will find myself, you know, sometimes I'll just read and it'll be starred in verse one and go through that entire chapter or whatever, you know, maybe a couple of verses, whatever the case may be.
But then there's other times, Dave, when I, you know, it's important for me to go to the topical guide or to the Bible dictionary and to, okay, Scott, I'm struggling a little bit today with maybe loving my brethren, loving others, you know, and if I do a scripture search and start searching for experiences around those kinds of things, just a different level, just a different approach that, you know, the Holy Spirit will actually be. That's my favorite way to study the scriptures.
Is thematic by themes, subjects. That's my favorite way to study the scriptures, Scott, is I need to increase my faith. So I'm going to look up the index or in the topical guide, the word faith, and I'm going to read through the entire list of scriptures that have the word faith in it, in the index or topical guide, and I'm going to mark with a red pencil all of those that stand out to me.
And the question I might be asking, seeking an answer for from the scriptures, might be how can I increase my faith? So any scripture I read that's going to teach me about how to increase my faith, I might mark with a certain color or, you know, I'll mark it. Then I'll make a list of them on a in a notebook. Then I'll look up each one of them. And then I'll write down what I learned from each scripture about how I can increase my faith.
That's just one way to study the scriptures, instead of just reading them, studying them, searching them, using them to solve answers and problems and answering problems and solving answering questions and solving your problems.
Yeah. Yeah. So I recommend to our listeners that if sometimes just reading them doesn't bring you this the level of spirituality that you're seeking, maybe immersing yourself just a little deeper in them by studying them by topic, ask a question, an inspired question, by the way, we'll talk about that soon and these 10 steps to receive revelation, ask an inspired question and then use the scriptures to find the answers to your inspired questions.
I heard Elder McConkey say this, Scott, and I have read where he said this. He has said the best kept secret in the church. That got my attention. What is the best kept secret in the church with his voice of thunder? The best kept secret in the church is that reading the best scriptures is the key to personal revelation. And he talked about how ridiculous that was, that that was the best kept secret in the church, but based on his experience, that was the best kept secret in the church.
And what do you mean by that's ridiculous is that should be no secret. That should be no secret. That should be common. Everyone should know that. Not just common knowledge, but common practice. What I want, you know, President Kimball said, when I feel the distance between me and God is getting further and further apart. Just a prophet speaking, Scott. You know, they don't walk in a cloud of spirituality. They have to do this, too.
And he said, when I feel that the distance between me and God is getting further and further apart. He says I immerse myself in the scriptures and quickly we are back together again. I'm paraphrasing. But he said, when I turn to the scriptures, I know that's true in my own personal life. When I feel as though maybe I'm not. I don't feel the spirit as much as I should, Scott.
Man, I go to the scriptures and especially the Book of Mormon and I read and better yet, if I have time to make a study or a search with a question, I just testify that the scriptures are more than an instrument of grace, which allows grace into our lives. And it's a powerful instrument of receiving the Holy Ghost and spirit of revelation in our lives. Somebody said, I think this was President Faust who said, if you want to talk to God, pray.
If you want God to talk to you, read the scriptures, read the scriptures. Yeah, I was just going to say that. So we want God to talk to us. We read the scriptures. Let's talk about talking to God. Let's talk about prayer as an instrument of grace and how that kind of works into this repenting of the sense of omission. How does prayer help us in repenting of the sense of omission, Dave? Well, you know, we did a whole course on repentance. So obviously my mind goes to cry out.
You can do a lot of things to repent, but if you don't cry out to God and ask for his help and ask for his forgiveness and confess your sins to him in personal, really personal heartfelt prayer, there is no repentance, basically, because repentance is not something of just about changing your behavior. It's about crying out to God. So that's my first thought. But Scott, I think there's so many things that one can do to improve the effectiveness of their prayers.
I bet most of our listeners probably pray, maybe not as regularly as they should, but they pray. And sometimes I think they feel like they're going through the motions. And there was probably a foolish book written years ago called When Your Prayers Bounce Off the Ceiling. That was foolish because no prayer bounces off the ceiling. I just testify that no prayer bounces off any ceiling, that all prayers are heard by God, even if you are going through the motions.
He knows your thoughts, he knows you're doing, and he knows what you're thinking and saying, speaking loud or silently. No prayer doesn't reach him. But when we feel that we're just going through the motions, then maybe we need to be more proactive about changing things up a bit. And President Holland encouraged us just recently, right? Pray vocally. We need to pray. There's more power in praying vocally. I think too many people pray silently, and there's not as much power.
Sometimes that's appropriate. Sometimes that's the only prayer we can offer, and God answers it. But there is great power in praying vocally to Heavenly Father. That's just one thing. Maybe the time of day or place that we pray. We really do need to go into our closets so that we can pray vocally. Wherever we pray and however we pray really affects the effectiveness of our ability to receive the Spirit. It really does.
There's a, I don't want to get too personal, and I'm not going to, but there's a place near me that I like to pray. And it requires me, and I don't go there all that frequently. But semi-frequently I do. And it requires some effort on my part to get to this place. You know, I can drive my car and then I have to get out of my car, and it's a ways. And you know, could I have that same experience by just doing it right here in my office, maybe?
But what I have decided that is this, that as, you know, as I'm walking to this place or hiking to this place, seclusion, beautiful, quiet, mountainous, you know, a place of peace and beauty and temple-like and all of that. But what has occurred to me is that it's in my effort to get there that my mind is beginning to be aligned with the attitude of prayer. And Dave, I've taught the... Preparation. Right. From the world, right? Yeah, preparation to pray. We can do more of that.
And just to get the Spirit of prayer. And the other thing that I've noticed is that prayer can come in so many forms. I agree. And I believe that prayer audibly offered a great deal of power. And that's something that has been my experience as well, pretty regularly. But I've also noticed, and this has been my experience through Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, that we don't all pray the same way and Heavenly Father hears all of our prayers. I do know that.
I know that the person that doesn't know how to pray and that his plea to Heavenly Father is, Dear God, just help me. Please help me. That's a prayer. And that prayer is a prayer that will be as readily answered as something that sounds so much more flowery. But it's all based on, again, the attitude of the heart. You know, what's my deepest desire? Why am I approaching the Lord in prayer?
If I'm approaching the Lord in prayer to receive personal revelation, the key to this course, right, or the steps to this course, if I'm approaching the Lord in prayer to receive personal revelation, then my heart will have a certain demeanor to it. It'll have a certain attitude attached to it. And that's more important than the words we say or the ritual by which we engage ourselves in prayer. It's important.
And I don't want, I don't ever want to be misquoted and have somebody think, well, Scott said that it's not important that we have respect, that it's not important that we kneel, that it's not important that we, all of those things. Use the right language. It is important. It's important. It's important. But if we're just starting, it's not a game changer if we don't. Thoughts in the intents of our hearts, right? That's it. Thoughts in the intents of our hearts. That's it.
One of the greatest prayers I ever heard offered, so memorable, I'll never forget it, was by an investigator, we call them friends now that I was teaching on my mission in Stockton, California. And this man was 50 years old. And he said he'd never prayed. And so we were teaching him how to pray. And he was, he was a pretty sharp fellow. And we were teaching him how to pray. And we had a flip chart back in those days, you know.
So I turned to that flip chart and I said, well, and there were four steps. You address your heavenly Father, by saying our heavenly Father. And that was on the page. And you thank him for your blessings. We thank thee, was on the flip chart. And we thank, we ask him for blessings that we may desire. We ask thee that was on the flip chart. And then we end always in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
So we've been trying hard to get him to pray and he hadn't prayed and this took a great act of faith on our part. But we had talked about this as missionaries, companions, and we were committed to review those steps with him, those four steps again and and to invite him to pray and to kneel down when we invited him. So we knelt down and we said, I'm going to, I said to him, I'm going to put this, put this flip chart right here so you can see it. And would you say the prayer for us?
We bowed our heads, closed our eyes, folded our arms, knelt down, waited. Finally he knelt down, Scott. We were hoping he would say something. And then we heard this. Our heavenly Father, we thank thee. We ask thee in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. My companion I were bowing tears, really. It was so heartfelt and sincere and an act of faith on this man's part. I think maybe he did have tears in his eyes.
And I stood up and was very honest when I said, oh, that's one of the best prayers I've ever heard. Anyway, needless to say, he felt a connection at that moment. And he kept that connection and built on that foundation and connection and was baptized, became a great member of the church. And I love that you use that word connection because that's really what we're doing when we're praying is we're establishing, making that connection, right?
And you know, some of us will have a way of doing it and others will have a way of doing it and there's a pattern, a preferred way, you know, according to the word of the Lord. But our heavenly Father hears our prayers. And the sincerity of our prayers is what's important. The faith by which we approach our prayers.
You know, even if our faith is, yeah, I have faith, Heavenly Father, I believe but strength in my own belief, even that kind of faith, you know, is the type of faith that will make those prayers. I have a friend, several friends in Alcoholics Anonymous who have prayers. You know, I'm lucky. I was taught to pray at a young age like you.
And I've had a lot of wonderful, wonderful experiences with prayer, even as a young man, even in the depths of my addiction, David, there was prayer and it was important to me. You know, I honestly believe if it hadn't been for prayer that maybe I wouldn't have made it through those dark nights of that soul, you know. And I'm trying not to be dramatic there, but I really believe that that's probably true.
The point of that I'm trying to make here is our prayer is just that communication where we are open to Heavenly Father. This is where our confessions are even made. This is where our desires are poured out. This is where our inadequacies are acknowledged. This is where I can't. I know you can. Will you please in our lives? That's the first three steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's the first three steps of overcoming the fall of Adam and Eve, right? This is just that approach.
And so when we're trying to receive or making an attempt to receive personal revelation in our lives, which is so important to us, there's just no possible way without prayer that that could be done. Yeah. There's probably lots of different methods of prayer, Scott. Yeah. And Heavenly Father hears them all.
I think the one thing, you know, when I was a branch president of the missionary training center, Scott, I was asking missionaries all the time about their spirituality and the effectiveness of their prayers. And this is at the missionary training center. So I was hearing from so many missionaries that their prayers were ineffective. And then they just didn't feel that they were connecting with God. And it was a great concern to me. And I thought about it and I prayed about it.
I think so fundamental, so important to the to the preparation of these missionaries at the MTC. And I received this prompting that these individuals were they were praying silently. They weren't really focused on their prayers the way they needed to be. And the situation was, was the way that they were arranged in their rooms at the MTC at the time.
They had four missionaries sleeping in a dorm room and they would all four, at least this was the case in my branch, they were all praying at the same time. They were all saying silent prayers. They were all thinking about how long should I pray or how short should I pray or I don't want to be awkward here. I don't want to pray too short. I don't want to pray too long. I don't want to be the first one. I don't want to be the last one. Exactly.
Yeah. And all these thoughts and concerns going through their mind when they were when they were praying. And so I I told them, okay, listen from now on, we're going to have a prayer time set apart. And I want three of you outside the room studying, preparing to say your prayers, take turns being the first, but three of you outside reading praying in preparation to say your prayers and one in the room at the time and I want you to pray out loud.
And I'm telling you, it immediately changed the effectiveness of their prayers and their spirituality. Scott and I saw I I don't know what there's many things, many suggestions could be made about language and reverence, I think it's for so important that we pray with reverence with a sincere heart with real intent, right? Or Muroni 10, three and four. There's so many things that we could say about prayer.
I think the most important thing is that there be a place where you can really concentrate and focus on who you're speaking to and with that it not be a monologue, that it be a dialogue and that you take time to not just tell him what's on your mind, which is so important and in your heart, but that you also take time to listen, right? That will increase the effect.
Any more will increase the effectiveness of your prayers than that and sometimes it's helpful to change things up and saying the same things every time. You just say a thank you prayer. Sometimes you say short prayers, sometimes you say long prayers.
Truman Madsen gave a great talk on Joseph Smith and prayer years ago and he talked about how Joe Smith would sometimes say really, really short prayers like the time the little girl recorded that she was in the home and he was saying the prayer on the food and he said, and we father were thankful for this food, but we wish we had more in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Then it not came at the door and somebody's offering him a ham. Sometimes his prayers were really, really long.
I just think we need to mix things up and not get in the habit of making our prayer as the vain repetitions that we can easily fall into.
So well, prayer before, before we move past prayer, you just mentioned something about prayer of gratitude and this is something in Alcoholics Anonymous that I learned and that I have kind of taught, you know, those that I work with and, and this is something that can have extreme power and that is a prayer of gratitude where we just say and thank him for what we have.
Just telling him what we're thankful for, but tell him, hey, we know that this is from thee and we thank thee for all of these things. But just that prayer of gratitude Dave, if that's, as one of the first things, if I call my sponsor and I'm having a terrible rotten, no good day, you know, there's several things that will default to and it's no different than it is in our spiritual quest.
And one of those things is how's your prayer, you know, and have you prayed and have you prayed a prayer of thanksgiving because if we focus on the things that we are thankful for, sometimes we forget about the things that are troubling us because by a ratio, you know, we have so I, I have so much in my life to be thankful for that the things that seem challenging to me, if I can just change that focus and I can do that through
that gratitude prayer, those other things just kind of take less, have less importance for sure. And so we talked last week about the pavilions. We need to make sure our prayers are not selfishly motivated, right? That we're not just there to get things, but that we're there to worship. Prayer is worship. That's the synonymous definition of it is that prayer is worship.
And that that should be the over-girding reason and purpose that we pray is to worship God in the name of Jesus Christ through the spirit and that if we will see it that way instead of just a wish list, some sort of a wish list or shopping list, then prayer will immediately become more meaningful. And I love everyone should read.
We won't take time to do it today, but you should all read what the in the Bible dictionary, Brother Robert J. Matthews wrote about prayer and he says that one of the keys in prayer, besides prayer being work, I think sometimes we're way too casual about it. The prayer can be work. It can be effort. And maybe that's why some people don't pray enough is because of the focus and the concentration in the effort that it sometimes takes, even though sometimes casual prayers can be great too.
But he says prayer is work and he says the key to it is understanding our relationship as a child to a heavenly parent to a heavenly father that if we understand this relationship that we're kneeling down as a child speaking to our heavenly father and we're there to express our love and to worship him, not to just ask for more things. Yeah, place of order. So all of those things I hope will help us to read the prayers more effective. There's many more.
We're going to have to probably revisit these. We're out of time today, but there's other instruments of grace and we probably should spend some time on those days next time.
But before we do, just as we prayer, we could spend an entire obviously we have done episode on just the importance of scripture study and prayer in the approach or in the effort to receive personal revelation in our life and overcome the sins of omission and overcome the sins of omission, which is this repented of our sins of omission is this fifth key. This is a step 11 from again, Alcoholics Anonymous couple weeks ago. I read this.
I want to read it again because this is specifically about prayer. We sought through prayer and meditation. So that's our listening part, right? That's the prayer that we've talked about where we pray and then we listen for the answers and we record those. So we thought through sought through prayer, meditation to improve our conscious contact with God and or in other words, our relationship with him, right? To be aware of our contact with him is about our relationship with him.
So to improve that conscious contact with God, as we understood him, which also means that we have to come to know him deeper, right? Praying only, praying only for the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry it out. So I need to know what his will is for me. You know, if I can go to my heavenly father with a wish list and there are things I want to pray for, there are righteous desires, knocking it shall be open.
You know, we're told to ask and we're told to ask for the things that we need. But if I approach heavenly father and say, Heavenly Father, you know my life better and you know me, you know what will bring me ultimate happiness and joy. And if I will align my will with your will, that will bring it to me. So help me to do that. How can I do that better? And then be prepared to take action to write down a few notes and to take action. Yeah. Well, that's awesome.
I'm excited to talk about the value and the power of inspired music and art next time. Yeah, me too. Well, another great episode. Thanks David for coming and being with me today and doing this. And thanks to all of you for listening in. And again, we really appreciate your participation and we hope and pray that you're feeling our heavenly father's love for you like we're feeling heavenly father's love for us and that we're feeling heavenly father's love for you as well.
Be well until we can join up again. We look forward to being with you next week. And until then, take care.