Thought for the Day

I have a confession to make.

Last Sunday we had Stake Conference, and it was one of those conferences where the stake president speaks, and the remainder of the conference is a broadcast from Salt Lake. I listened to the stake president talk about how we are all in Lehi's dream, and how we need to ignore the mockery of the world so we can enjoy the fruit of the tree of life. I paid attention to the talks about working with the missionaries to hasten the work of the gathering of Israel, and about how families are preparation for eternal life. I was interested in the talk about sacrifice and consecration.

But I confess that during the last talk, the one about prayer, I was hearing the words, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. My excuse is that Peter's attention span was shot, and I was trying to help him endure to the end of the meeting, but there was probably a better way for me to do that than playing hangman with him. My notes for that final talk consisted of sentences I picked out from what he was saying for Peter to guess: "Prayer is a sacred privilege" and "God will prompt you in peaceful moments."

I didn't feel guilty about it until later that day when someone asked me if I could share with her the notes I had taken during that particular talk. Imagine my embarrassment when I had to admit I hadn't taken any! In Institute on Tuesday, that talk was mentioned again as some sisters shared some things they had gotten out of it about why God sometimes doesn't seem to answer our prayers. It sounded like a good talk! I looked online to see if the broadcast was available on the church website, and it is there, but apparently you have to have some special login to be able to access it. So I'm sunk. I never will know exactly what was said.

Anyway, the thought for the day is a quote that I came across this morning in my personal scripture study. I don't know if it is something that was included in the talk I missed, but from the comments I heard in institute, it sounds like the speaker might have said something similar. This quote is by Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

“[A person may have] a strong desire to be led by the Spirit of the Lord but … unwisely extends that desire to the point of wanting to be led in all things. A desire to be led by the Lord is a strength, but it needs to be accompanied by an understanding that our Heavenly Father leaves many decisions for our personal choices. Personal decision making is one of the sources of the growth we are meant to experience in mortality. Persons who try to shift all decision making to the Lord and plead for revelation in every choice will soon find circumstances in which they pray for guidance and don’t receive it. For example, this is likely to occur in those numerous circumstances in which the choices are trivial or either choice is acceptable. 

“We should study things out in our minds, using the reasoning powers our Creator has placed within us. Then we should pray for guidance and act upon it if we receive it. If we do not receive guidance, we should act upon our best judgment. Persons who persist in seeking revelatory guidance on subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to direct us may concoct an answer out of their own fantasy or bias, or they may even receive an answer through the medium of false revelation” (“Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall,” Ensign, Oct. 1994, 13–14).