I planned to go to the Temple today after work but when I got home I was so tired. I went in and got undressed and grabbed my shorts to put on and had a thought put into my mind to drop the shorts right now and start getting dressed for the Temple or you will not go. I felt that push and luckily obeyed.
I can not tell you about everything that was taught to me while in the session but so much was running through my mind. I will share a few thoughts. First of all I felt in the smallest degree how the prophet Joseph Smith Jr felt when he said,
“It is my meditation all the day & more than my meat & drink to know how I shall make the saints of God to comprehend the visions that roll like an overflowing surge, before my mind” (WJS, p. 196).
For I felt an overwhelming need to record my thoughts for any and all that read but mostly my family can grow from these teachings, and yet I was stuck in a position that I could not record and knew that many of them will be lost from my memory. I am not by any means comparing myself to this great prophet of the restoration which the words and will of God flowed to and through him. I just had the smallest fraction of what that may of felt like.
My mind was drawn to the experience that I had when I was told, “to drop the shorts.” I know that I am guilty of not being willing to do what is needed to grow spiritually. It comes in may forms whether it is just being to tired or lazy we as saints of the most High must improve our commitment to our Father in heaven. My mind was brought to think about the Stake Conference or Regional Conference the Saturday session that I had to paint faces (one of my jobs at the time) and decided not to go. One of the speakers explained how everyone has their own personal barriers that are too great to cross. He used that session to explain that those that choose not to attend this session are missing out on many blessings. This is where they should be and yet for some that commitment was too great or unimportant enough to arrange their lives in order to attend. This struck me to the very core and I knew then that we must not allow our own wills to stop us from doing the will of Him that sent us.
Luke 2:49
49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?John 5:30
30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
We also must not strive to do our own will but the will of the Father just like our elder brother, Jesus Christ. I also thought about a Stake President that someone told me once that he said that he does not watch TV or listen to the radio because he can’t afford to lose the Spirit. Do we just not care or is that too much to ask of us. What is too much to ask of us. Do we have to be commanded in all things.
D&C 58:26
26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.
I thought to myself what if I were called to be a Stake President tomorrow, what would I change. Then the thought came, why do I have to wait to change. We are told to carry our cross, I see nowhere in scripture where it says to wait until called to carry your cross.
Matthew 10:38
38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.2 Nephi 9:18
18 But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.Jacob 1:8
8 Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world…Alma 34:33, 35
33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.• • •
35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.
Begin today with me to carry our cross that we may be called his disciple and numbered among His sheep that hear his voice.
John 10:27
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Another thing that I thought about was how on earth Jesus had not a place to lay his head.
Matthew 8:20
20 And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
Now he has not only over a hundred Temples on earth but He now has dominions, palaces, kingdoms, and in short all that the father hath.
Let me just sum it up by saying I cried a lot and feel closer to my Father in Heaven and yet feel to repent and become better. I feel just as Joseph Smith felt when he proclaimed,
Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p47
If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses, for if we are not drawing towards God in principle, we are going from him and drawing towards the devil. Yes, I am standing in the midst of all kinds of people.
Search your hearts, and see if you are like God. I have searched mine, and feel to repent of all my sins.
I absolutely love the Temple and love my Savior.
Written by Craig Conover on 1/8/07.
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