I Stand At the Door and Knock

[We are four days into our forty day countdown to the presidential elections.  If you're just joining, feel free to read the past few posts to catch up!]

I love listening to my son pray because his style is unfiltered and genuine.  Whether it's praying for 'good dreams' or asking for 'President Obama to be fired' (he actually said that this week--clearly our conversations are saturated with politics), he has a way of communicating that is simple and honest.  I love it.

Recently, I delivered an address to a tri-stake seminary devotional and my topic was centered on divine communication.  As the presidential elections steadily approach, and we look at the state of affairs in our country it makes sense that we connect in a more meaningful way with our Heavenly Father.  I have adapted the talk for an adult audience and hope you enjoy reading what I learned as I studied this topic.
 
Using Prayer and the Holy Ghost to Open Your Heart to Christ 

As our kids suite up to battle out another year of school with their backpacks loaded and pencils poised to spring, I hope we remember that there is a much greater war being waged at the same time; one that threatens a bit more than their GPA.  This fight is an equal opportunity employer, engaging every man, woman, and child who would enlist to oppose that prince of darkness whose forces put to shame the bullies and cliques that roam the high school halls.  To quote Paul, a fellow soldier they'll come to know and love this year in Seminary: “[We] wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6)

This is why 2,000 stripling warriors fought, why Moroni raised the Title of Liberty, why Moses parted the Red Sea, why the Nephites, Jaredites, Mulekites and Pilgrims crossed an ocean—the struggle for freedom.

In Alma 61 there is a line addressed to Captain Moroni, the leader of the Nephite armies from the governor Pahoran.  Pahoran writes Moroni saying that the spirit of freedom is the spirit of God.  This makes sense when you consider that everything about our Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness is designed to help us become free from the things that would physically or spiritually keep us benched on the sidelines, unable to play our part in this game of life. 

At the end of most sport’s seasons, an MVP (most valuable player) is recognized for making the difference in the team’s performance.  In this final season of the world, when so much is on the line, our Heavenly Father has reserved His MVP’s too, his Most Valiant Players—that’s YOU—and you really can make all the difference.

You may not be asked to cross an ocean or wield a weapon of war, but you most certainly will find yourself in situations that require the same level of courage, strength, and fortitude to face.  Just as David squared off with a nine foot behemoth, you will come toe to toe with giants of adversity that intimidate, bully and browbeat you down into thinking that you are not enough.  You are!

To paraphrase a timeless passage written by the American patriot Thomas Paine:  “These are the times that try the soul . . .” These are hard times—it isn’t easy to live the Lord’s standards especially when many around us are taking the black diamond run down the ski slope of standards.  It isn’t easy to arise and shine forth when many are dashing their light out and busily snuffing out others’.  It isn’t easy to be an example of the believers when you’re spoon-fed a steady stream of slogans that tell you to ‘just do it’, or ‘have it your way’.  Certainly, life is difficult, but nothing worth having ever came easy.    Mr. Paine echoes this sentiment:

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.  Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.” (The Crisis, by Thomas Paine)

Thankfully, you have not been thrown into the fray ill-equipped.  Heavenly Father has given you everything you need to come off conqueror and fight the good fight.  I want to talk about one of the most important arms you have available in your arsenal:  divine communication.

On the battlefield, communication is essential—a game changer.  Let me share an example that illustrates this and then draw a parallel back to you.  Before the United States entered the Second World War, Hitler’s Nazi Regime was held off from taking the whole of Europe by little more than 1,000 British pilots that formed the Royal Air Force (or RAF’s).  Many of these pilots were young, completely inexperienced boys at the tender age of 17 or 18.  This fledgling band of brothers were out-manned, outnumbered, and outmaneuvered but they had one supreme advantage over their German counterparts: better communication.  The RAF’s were led by a man named Sir Hugh Dowding, and he knew the odds his British boys, or chicks as they were called, were going to come against so he pushed for the use of a new technology known as radar.

“he ordered construction of a line of radar stations along the coast of southern England. . . though the stations were unable to determine the altitude of incoming aircraft or to discern between friendly and enemy airplanes, they proved to be absolutely critical to the upcoming battle.  Dowding came to understand that the numbers of his aircraft and the experience of his pilots would always be severely limited.  He also understood that his pilots would be facing an overwhelming number of bombers and fighter escorts.  Knowing this, he concluded that they couldn’t waste time on preemptive patrols or random attacks.  Everything had to be controlled and coordinated.  It had to be precise.” (Seven Tipping Points that Saved the Word, Chris & Ted Stewart, pg. 248-249)

So Dowding constructed a central command center from which he could receive up to date reports and issue orders out to his fighters, who then in turn maneuvered and carried out their commander’s instructions with exactness.

A favorite saying of mine is ‘Information leads to Inspiration’. Dowding and the chicks didn’t have perfect communication but they did have enough information to effectively run their campaign.  Unbelievable odds were overcome simply by the fact that these pilots knew where to go and what to do most of the time.  It is no different with us.  We are facing overwhelming odds, and yet our Heavenly Father has put in place a perfect system of communication through which you and I can update Him night and day and receive up to the minute instruction that will help us maneuver through enemy air and safely make it home.  That communication pattern comes by way of prayer and the Holy Ghost. 

I don’t know if it is still this way, I’m getting older, but at the beginning of school we were issued a lock with a three number combination to our locker.  Elder Neal A. Maxwell compared prayer to this combination lock when he said:

 “Petitioning in prayer has taught me, again and again, that the vault of heaven with all its blessings is to be opened only by a combination lock. One tumbler falls when there is faith, a second when there is personal righteousness; the third and final tumbler falls only when what is sought is, in God’s judgment—not ours—right for us.” (Neal A. Maxwell)

In chapter 3 of Revelation it says that Jesus Christ, “Stands at the door and knocks” waiting for us to open our heart up to him.  To repeat Elder Maxwell, the key to unlocking that door to the Savior is to exercise faith, increase in personal righteousness, and seek to do what the Lord would have us do.  Unbarring that door can be difficult—prayer is truly a form of work.

A perfect example of this is the prophet Enos.  You all remember the account of Enos, who in his effort to find physical nourishment out hunting in the woods found himself hungering after something far more appealing.  He described it as his wrestle before the Lord, a perfect description when I think about my own experience with prayer.

“Such wrestling is the struggle to find and express one’s real desires under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Praying in this manner requires that a person eliminate vain, trite, or insincere repetitions and to pour the deepest desires of his or her heart into words. Each phrase becomes an expression of yearning and desire to do God’s will. Such prayers are assisted and guided by the Holy Spirit,

“for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26)” (BOM Institute Manual, pg. 130).

How are your prayers?  Do you pray?  How often?  What about?  When you get done praying do you remember what you said, how you felt?  Do you take time to listen?  Do you have a hard time concentrating, or often lose your train of thought?  If these questions have you feeling there is room for improvement, I can personally assure you that you are not alone in this.  Learning how to pray, and how to recognize the answers to my prayers has and will continue to be a lifelong process. The way each of us communicates and receives personal revelation is just that—personal, but Elder Boyd K. Packer taught that it is centered more in feelings, than sounds.

Sometimes when I pray the words come effortlessly and I can feel my Heavenly Father’s love so strong, other times I can’t even seem to form the words or focus my thoughts.  At times as I read certain things in the scriptures or other good books, radiant warmth floods my heart and fills my mind with light.  I know that what I am reading is true.  At other times, I just log the time and check it off my list of things I need to do.  Sometimes I will feel an overwhelming desire to do something; most of the time, however I just do what I reason would be best only to look back later and realize that the inspiration of the Holy Ghost was there.  Once in a long while, I will receive an express directive in my mind that I know is revelation. 

If you are struggling to recognize how the Spirit speaks to you, or better yet how you should speak with the Spirit to Heavenly Father I would encourage you to study Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision.  Before that remarkable vision of the Father and Son burst upon Joseph, he was struggling to know the truth and wasn’t sure how to figure things out.  He received his answer by studying the scriptures, and from the epistle of James learned that he must ask for himself with faith that he would receive an answer to his question, doubting not that God would give liberally to Him.   Remember that Satan did all he could to keep Joseph from praying, and he will do the same with you.  The Father of Lies loves whispering to us to hide, run, or cover ourselves whenever we make a mistake, are unsure of ourselves, or hit a dead end. Please don’t run--turn to Him and know that there is no place so far that he cannot reach you. Note that when Joseph wrestled with a being so dark that it had power to bind his tongue and nearly sink him into self abandoned ruin, he called out for help and God did not forsake him, and I promise he won’t forsake you.  There have been and will be times this year when you may feel alone, misunderstood, scared, hopeless, beyond rescue, confused. He will not leave you but will come to you and encircle you in the arms of His love (D&C 6). He needs every one of us in this fight and we would do well to remember that the Most Creative Being in the Universe works not with the brave and brawny but the weak and simple to accomplish His designs.  ‘the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong’ (Eccl. 9:11) but to him who is diligent (Mosiah 4:27).  Keep those lines of communication open with your Father in Heaven at all costs!

Allow me to close with a contrasting account from the Battle of Britain that illustrates how a lack of communication cost Germany the war.  In Hitler’s attempt to convince the English that he was ‘on their side’ he held off bombing any densely populated areas like London. Instead, he kept his airplane crews busy day and night bombing air fields and military factories, so much so that their attacks found Britain one step away from defeat.  If something didn’t change fast, the war would be over!    

The theory of nighttime bombing was pretty simple, find your target and drop the bomb—actually doing it in the cover of darkness with a very simple and not entirely accurate radio transmitter to help you find your way—not so easy.  The crew of a German Bomber found themselves struggling to pin point their target on the fateful night of August 24-25.  After making a navigational error, the German pilot accidently rained 1,500 pounds of bombs down on a neighborhood in London.  As dozens of houses and family dwellings burst into flames the anger of the English people was ignited and in retaliation, they bombed Berlin.  “Hitler—who had not been told about his crew’s [accidental] bombing of London—was outraged” that his German population centers had been attacked for no reason.  “Furious, he ordered revenge attacks on London.  So it was that, without being given a critical piece of information, and acting out of anger just when his attacks on the British airfields and factories was about to overwhelm his foe, Hitler changed his tactics.  He began bombing civilian targets, ditching the only strategy that had any hope of leading him to victory.  Bombing assignments started being made not based upon any planned or calculated consideration, but on Hitler’s desire for revenge.  Because of this error, Hitler never could conquer Britain, forcing him to turn his madness against the Soviet Union, which history proved to be a fatal mistake."  (information adapted and paraphrased from Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World, Stewart)

There is a principle Stephen Covey taught that says ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’ (Thank you Jeff!).  If we will seek wisdom as it states in Proverbs we will with all of our getting, get understanding and this will bless us to navigate correctly our road of life.  May we take the Holy Spirit as our guide and ever keep open that divine channel of communication that is prayer.   
Have a beautiful fall Monday!