bom365 - Lehi went forth and prayed unto the Lord...with all his heart. When have you prayed to the Lord with all your heart for yourself, a family member or as part of a group? What did you learn from that experience?
bofm365 - What do you love most about the Book of Mormon?
- Personal prayer is something that I struggle with. When I was younger I prayed all the time. The older and busier I get I find it hard to get on my knees and pray morning and night. I usually find myself praying small prayers in my mind (and on my feet) throughout the day. At night I usually pray as I'm laying in bed and I'm reviewing my day in my head. 9 times out of 10 I fall asleep before I can get the Amen out. Or I'll say Amen and then keep on praying in random thought patterns until I fall asleep. Not my finest hour. Even before this Book of Mormon challenge started Prayer was at the top of my goal list for this year. It's time to get serious about my prayers and about how I should be kneeling when I say them. Real, kneeling prayers is on the top of my 2015 goal list. And since today is the third day I'm still doing great! (Yay me!). Now the reason why I bring this up is because I know that prayer is real. I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers me. And lately I've felt that He's not hearing me and I've come to the conclusion it's because He's treating my prayers like I'm treating my prayers. "Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, when you're ready to be serious, let me know. love you, buh-bye" There have been several times in my life where I have gotten HUGE answers to prayers. Miraculous answers to prayers. To the point where I know that God is real, I cannot doubt His existence. From these experiences I've learned that He loves me. Because even though he doesn't necessarily answer EVERY prayer I utter, the big important ones he has. And yes, sometimes I've had to pray for months and months and months before I got an answer. But when the answer finally came, it was worth the wait. Prayer teaches me patience. Which is not a virtue I'm blessed with. It reminds me that HE is God and that I'm on His timetable not my own. One of my favorite general conference talks on prayer was given this past October by Elder Richard G. Scott. If you don't want to watch the whole video, here's the part he specifically talked on prayer.
"Choose to converse with your Father in Heaven often. Make time every day to share your thoughts and feelings with Him. Tell Him everything that concerns you. He is interested in the most important as well as the most mundane facets of your life. Share with Him your full range of feelings and experiences.Because He respects your agency, Father in Heaven will never force you to pray to Him. But as you exercise that agency and include Him in every aspect of your daily life, your heart will begin to fill with peace, buoyant peace. That peace will focus an eternal light on your struggles. It will help you to manage those challenges from an eternal perspective."
(He goes on to talk about the importance of family prayer, but that's a whole different topic.) What I love about this talk (and I can hear his voice when I read it) is that Heavenly Father wants to know all the dumb day to day things that I think "why on earth would he want me to tell him that? He already knows and it's just dumb stuff" But this made me realize that He wants us to come to Him, to speak with Him as I speak to my husband, my girlfriends, my mom, random Facebook rants. But my most favorite thing is how Elder Scott promises peace. What a wonderful blessing we get just for talking to our Father in Heaven.
- I
enjoy reading the Book of Mormon. I love the feeling of accomplishment
I get when I finish reading the book. But most of all I love the
peaceful feeling I get when I read. And those fabulous "A-ha!" moments
when we feel something just clicks as the words that are written bear
testimony to me that what is written is the truth. Finding peace in
reading the scriptures has become a challenge to me. Once again, the
older I get the harder it is for me to keep constant personal scripture
reading. But, I can find peace and calm when I take the time to READ
the scriptures instead of when I'm behind and I rush through a chapter
not really taking in what I'm reading. That is why this challenge is so
important to me. It's been 3 days and I'm amazed at the difference
it's making. Even though the reading (verse wise) is small, I have
never spent so much time thinking about what I've read and turning to
other sources (lds.org) for more information and thoughts. I am
beginning to see a glimmer of what Nephi talks about in 2 Nephi 4:15.
I'm finding myself being delighted by the scriptures. I am looking
forward to the questions that are given every day and I like to push
myself to see how I feel or what that topic means to me. It's
refreshing my memory of things that truly are important.
My favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon are the war chapters. I love the complete faith of Helaman's army, the bravery of Teancum, the valiant Lehi, the honor of Captain Moroni. Such strong men who fought so valiantly for their wives & children, for their freedom and for their God. It must have been horrific to see such death and destruction and yet their faith never wavered. What marvelous examples for our day. For our children and for us. Men in the Book of Mormon are worthy to hold the title of Hero. They still live on every time I read.
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