If The Savior Stood Beside Me

My Sunday School lesson this week is on being born again, or born of the spirit. To be born again we must become like Christ--a pretty tall order! It is something impossible for the natural man to do alone. To be born again--to have "no more desire to do evil, but to do good continually!" (Mosiah 5:2) Wow! Bruce R. McConkie taught that to be born again is a process. Like any other process we "become" line upon line, little by little. How grateful I am to have the gospel, to have the privilege of attending church each week which feeds my desire to do good continually, and reminds me that when I dissapoint the Lord and myself, that I CAN repent!

What a wonderful reminder this is for me, and for all of us to re-examine our lives and answer the question posed to us by a prophet of God in the Book of Mormon: "Alma 5:14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?"

As I ponder this, I see the plaque my daughter-in-law gave me a few years ago that reads:

CHRIST
The center of our home
A guest at every meal
A silent listener at every conversation

It has been a wonderful reminder and has inspired me to try harder to live my life so that I can share with the Savior every conversation I have, every book I read, every movie I watch, every song I listen to and when I do so, I feel comfortable in His presence and I know that my eyes shine a little brighter with His Image and His love, and I want nothing more than to do good continually. (And then, when I dim that light by dissapointing Him and myself, He loves me still and allows me to repent!) I want to try harder this year to emulate the primary song, "If The Savior Stood Beside Me" by Sally DeFord.

If the Savior stood beside me,
Would I do the things I do?
Would I think of His commandments and try harder to be true?
Would I follow His example?
Would I live more righteously if I could see the Savior standing nigh,
watching over me?
If the Savior stood beside me,
Would I say the things I say?
Would my words be true and kind if He were never far away?
Would I try to share the gospel?
Would I speak more rev’rently if I could see the Savior standing nigh,
watching over me?
If the Savior stood beside me, would my thoughts be clean and pure?
Would His presence give me strength and hope and courage to endure?
Would His counsel guide my actions?
Would I choose more worthily if I could see the Savior standing nigh
watching over me?
Watching over me, watching over me,
He is always near me, though I do not see Him there,
And because He loves me dearly,
I am in His watchful care,
So I’ll be the kind of person that I know I’d like to be
if I could see the Savior standing nigh watching over me.
I will be the kind of person that I know I’d like to be
if I could see the Savior standing nigh watching over me.

For The Beauties of the Earth

On Sunday I taught my gospel doctrine lesson on the Sermon on the Mount! All last week I played the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Consider The Lillies" CD. Ever since, I have been absolutely filled with "the beauty of the earth!" I played the music as prelude music with a note on the board asking everyone to look up the corresponding scriptures to items I had placed on the table. All items I found in my own home---salt, a picture of lillies that Ron gave me that I had printed, a rock from the yard, bread, a picture of my newest little bride, a beam of wood, a picture of my neighbor, and many many more things.

This idea came to me so clearly as I prayed for guidance in teaching. Before prayer, I had no idea how to present so much absolutely wonderful material in half an hour! We really didn't have time to discuss each item, but they got the message before class even started. The wonderful thing was how reverent it became even before starting class! The power of sacred music has always been wonderful to me. It never fails to bring the spirit! After my son Robert died it was the ONLY relief and comfort I could find. Several of my friends who knew how much I love reverent, spiritual music gave me new CD's and they were, and still are my lifeline to the Lord and to hope!

I spent most of that class time talking of the Beatitudes and of their progressive nature as outlined in the Bible Dictionary! It is worth reading, really worth reading! I have pondered so much since preparing and then giving this lesson. We all have to go up the steps---line upon line---from being poor in spirit and finally learning to love ourselves, to then mourning for our sins enough to repent, being meek enough to submit to the prophet and thus to the Lord, which leads us to actually hunger and thirst after righteousness! Those steps teach us to love the Lord! Then on to being merciful, in other words, treating others with patience, kindness, and long-suffering, while always remembering our OWN weaknesses. This leads to our becoming pure in heart---being purged of all desire to do wrong by the Holy Ghost---till we become peacemakers. A person wanting to live in unity, law abiding, pleasant agreeable and generous. (Doesn't that sound like Ron? He's pretty wonderful!) These three beatitudes teach us to love others! And, then---the hard one---learning to love our enemies, by being willing to suffer trials and NOT compromise our ideals to win approval of the world! And, I think even harder, to do this without offense to man or God (Well, some men will take offense no matter what) but even when they do, the Savior actually commands us to pray FOR our enemies.

I am so thankful that He judges us by the intent of hearts. He is so merciful when we fall short! He just wants us to get back up and try again! I think I realized after studying these principles this time around, that we can go through all of these steps in certain times and phases of our lives, and then boom---we are right back to having to learn to love ourselves all over again. Life gets more challenging. We find ourselves at the top of the ladder only to discover that it is, in fact, the bottom of the next ladder, and so on I suppose to the end of our lives and even beyond until we have become perfect!

I pray that the Lord will help all of us. I think if we just find ourselves going up ... just keep going up we can make it! But, even when we slip down, the minute we reach for Him, our Father in Heaven is there. It has always amazed me that when I turn to Him, He just overwhelms me with his love!

And, I believe that things will always get better. They always will! The world is indeed beautiful. Like this picture I took while Ron and I were in the canyon on Saturday! It was a beautiful, beautiful autumn day! The big rock in this picture reminds me of the "rock of our salvation" Jesus Christ. Ron is also a rock for me---strong, steady, safe and kind!

Beyond Testimony

I read an article by Wallace Goddard from Meridian Magazine, that has made great sense to me today. He spoke of getting beyond testimony. After we have gained a testimony of so many doctrines and had enough experiences with our Father in Heaven, we need not keep testing each and every doctrine, or each and every thing the Prophet asks us to do, to know that it is from God. We reach a point of trust, wherein we develop a relationship with our Father in Heaven! I love that. Relationships are trust! Whenever we are apart from someone we love, we have a desire to check-in and check-on the welfare of that person, and to share feelings and thoughts and joys and sorrows!

And then, beyond the relationship is partnership. Aah . . . partnership. I know I have had a relationship with my Father in Heaven all my life. I have simply had too many experiences with Him for it to be any other way --- but partnership? I have had only moments of this last step. Only little moments which I have begun to experience, but this article made it so clear. I quote now from the article.

"Maybe the stage of relationship prepares us for the next step in our spiritual development — partnership. After all, God has asked for our mind, heart, might and strength. Many of us submit our mind first through the testimony process. Then we offer our heart as we enter a relationship. As our souls are changed by that relationship, we offer more and more of our energy. We become partners with Him in the remarkable work of blessing His children.
This stage is accessed when we turn our lives over completely to Him. We become consecrated. Our prayers no longer have the begging quality to them: Please do this or change that. We stop trying to change His mind. Our mind and will becomes aligned with His.
Ironically, at this stage of complete submission, our prayers may actually be more authoritative than in earlier stages. The person in partnership with God may pray, “Father, help me to use Thy power to bless Thy children.” Since the person has no will but God’s will, He may be able to command and be obeyed.
Enoch, meek Enoch, was authorized to command the elements in the name of God. “He spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command” (Moses 7:13).
Partnership is where we work with Him in perfect harmony to advance His perfect purposes. At this level of progression, He is preparing us to partner with Him in eternity.
Testimony is the start. Relationship comes next. Then we seek for partnership. His plan is a beautifully progressive plan to make us more like Him". (End of quote)

My desires (Bonnie Holt's desires) to bless the lives of my family have lead me to desire something more, to change the nature and content of my prayers. I have prayed more earnestly lately to "know what to pray for!" I have known intellectually that we have power from God when we give our "whole souls" to Him --- to pray for that which He would have us pray for. I guess Enoch got to the point that the Lord trusted him. He knew that if Enoch wanted to move a mountain, he had a great and noble reason to do so, one in compatibility with God. So Enoch could say, "move" . . . I think I finally understand a little more why Alma could pray for his son and an angel could not be restrained from answering that prayer. Because, that is precisely what God wanted Alma to pray for, and precisely what God wanted to happen, because that was precisely the RIGHT thing for his son. Oh, to be like Alma and Enoch. To know and act and be in partnership with God! It's such a tall order it makes me gasp, but oh I want to be. Just to bless the lives of my family --- just precisely for them! To pray not for what I want for my children, but for what God wants, for them, for my husband, and for myself.

To read the entire article: http://www.meridianmagazine.com/myth/071121beyond.html