kathyhmcbride – Page 2 – Scattering Inspiration

It Really Isn’t Complicated

I recently read a BYU devotional talk titled When Shall These Things Be? by M. Russell Ballard. Although it was given 25 years ago, it could easily have been given today! It is definitely worth reading! Something he said really resonated with me. “Are you going to follow the true and living prophets or not? It really isn’t any more complicated than that. Keep your eyes riveted on the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. We will not lead you astray. We cannot.”1

This weekend is general conference and I’m so excited! One of the ways I like to prepare is to read the talks from the previous conference. I read them often throughout the six months, but there is something powerful that happens when I read them all in just a few days. It is almost like putting a puzzle together. Each piece adds to the next. When I am done, a beautiful masterpiece is before me. But it only remains a beautiful masterpiece if I apply what has been taught.

In a contentious and convoluted world, what an incredible blessing it is to have calm and concise voices guiding us through the confusion! With our eyes riveted on the prophet and apostles, we are protected. What an amazing promise!

David A. Bednar suggests this helpful pattern for us to follow as we listen to conference, “[I]dentify the fundamental doctrine or principle that’s being taught, find any invitations associated with and related to that doctrine or principle, and then … recogniz[e] the promised blessings, if we act in accordance with that invitation.”2

As you listen to conference this weekend, I encourage you to make a list of the things our leaders are inviting us to do. As you look at the list, think about Elder Ballard’s question. “Are you going to follow the true and living prophets or not?” Following them is acting on those invitations. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.

References:

1. When Shall These Things Be? – M. Russell Ballard

2. Church News Podcast: Episode 24 – David A. Bednar

Who Do You Trust?

The other day someone posed the question, “Who do you trust?” He then began to list off a few people he often trusts, sometimes simply because of their professions, without even giving it a second thought. He is absolutely right! We all do that. Every time we get in our cars, we are trusting the other people on the road with us. When we go out to eat, we trust the restaurant owner, the cook, and the waiters. When we get on an airplane, we are putting our trust in the pilot, the mechanics, the air traffic controllers. The list goes on and on. But that is not where he wanted the question to take us. His question was meant for us to think deeply about who we really trust.

Why is it that we can so quickly put our trust in people we don’t know and who don’t know us and yet often find it difficult to trust God? He is our loving Heavenly Father. He does know us! And He does love us—more than we can imagine! He will support us and sustain us if we will put our trust in Him. The scriptures are clear about that! (See Alma 36:3, Alma 38:5)

Undoubtedly, life will be challenging. And sometimes it will be downright hard! That is just a fact. When we trust God and His timing, we can find peace amidst the storms of life. I have been blessed to feel His calming hand in during some pretty fierce storms.

When one of Joseph B. Wirthlin’s daughters was going through a particularly difficult time, he gave her a small card on which he had typed these words, “The simple secret is this: put your trust in the Lord, do your best, then leave the rest to Him.”1

That is the simple secret for all of us! There are unimaginable blessings and unexplainable peace when we trust God! And I trust Him with all my heart!

Reference:

1. Come What May, and Love It – Joseph B. Wirthlin

Let God Prevail

I have always found it interesting how differently people handle life’s challenges. What makes someone more resilient? Perhaps that question can be answered with another question, one that Russell M. Nelson asked near the end of one of his conference talks, “Are you willing to let God prevail in your life?”1 I have thought a lot about that question over the last few months. What does it mean to let God prevail in our lives? Do we trust in Him and in His timing? Are we willing to rely on Him when we are asked to do hard things? Are we willing to walk away from the world, even if we are mocked for doing so? Most likely my answers to those questions will be a little different than yours. And I suspect even the meaning of those questions changes depending on what is happening in our lives.

One certainty in life is that we will have challenges—difficult ones! We will have disappointments, heartaches, doubts, and losses. At one point or another, we have all had to ask ourselves if we are willing to let God prevail in our lives, though we probably didn’t use those exact words.

Just recently I accepted a new assignment, one I cannot possibly do without a lot of help from Heavenly Father. I had questions only He could answer. And He did! I need His constant guidance. Letting Him prevail in my life is taking me on a beautiful journey. There have been other times in my life when I have had to trust Him and trust His promises. As I have done that, I have been sustained in my heartaches and have been able to rejoice in my covenants.

I have watched others as they have gone through heart-wrenching and life-changing events. Even if they weren’t consciously asking it, they have still had to confront that question head-on. Trusting God and letting Him prevail in our lives doesn’t mean going through our challenges alone. He expects us to “mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.”2

One of our family friends got Covid really bad. He spent a few weeks in the hospital. At times, his condition was grim. His wife, feeling overwhelmed and scared and needing more faith than she had on her own, reached out to our family and asked for our faith and prayers. Our prayers were constant as we pleaded with Heavenly Father to bless our friend and his family, always placing our trust in Him no matter what happened. We decided to fast as a family. Things improved dramatically—for a few days. Then he had a setback. We fasted again. We kept praying. We held on to our faith and so did his family. He improved slowly and was finally able to go home. He still has a long road ahead of him, but he continues to recover and regain his strength.

You may recall the experience President Nelson shared about his granddaughter-in-law whose father passed away despite fasting, prayers, and priesthood blessings. Understandably, she was devastated. She had to consciously “expand [her] perspective and seek the eternal.”1 President Nelson said, “By choosing to let God prevail, she is finding peace.”1 If we choose to do the same, we too will have peace and “wholeness and joy.”1

As we ask ourselves if we are willing to let God prevail, President Nelson reminds us that the word willing is crucial. “We have our agency. … We can choose to let God prevail in our lives, or not. We can choose to let God be the most powerful influence in our lives, or not.”1 Let’s choose to do it—everyday and always! At times it may be difficult, but it is surely much easier than the alternative! Especially in our most difficult hours, life is always better when God is in charge.

References:

1. Let God Prevail – Russell M. Nelson

2. Mosiah 18:9

Love should be …

If you have turned on your television or radio in the last several days, you have undoubtedly been bombarded with commercials reminding you that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and you need to buy this or that to show the special people in your life just how much you love them. I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t write a note or do something extra special for the ones we love this week. Not at all! We definitely should! Holidays are great times to show expressions of love.

However, the way we show people we genuinely love them is how we treat them – day in and day out, especially when life is hard or it’s inconvenient. I think Dieter F. Uchdorf said it best, “Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do. … Love should be our walk and our talk.”1

Think about it, if Heavenly Father has commanded us to love, He will help us know how to love and who to love! I truly believe that! When love is our walk and our talk, we are focused on others. We look for ways to bless those around us. And most importantly, we listen for the impressions from the Spirit. When love is our walk and our talk, the quality of our relationships will improve! Love begets love. Love begets miracles!

When was the last time you did a random act of kindness for a member of your family? For a friend? For a stranger? Sometimes it’s the really simple things that have the greatest impact. Joseph B. Wirthlin once said, “We often don’t know the reach of a simple act of kindness.”2

Imagine how much better the world be if each of us made a conscious effort to have love be our walk and our talk every day!

References:

1. The Love of God – Dieter F. Uchtorf

2. The Abundant Life – Joseph B. Wirthin

Your Personal Key to Heaven

In a worldwide devotional in 2017 Russell M. Nelson said, “Pray to discern between God’s laws and the philosophies of men, including those cunning counterfeits of the adversary. Through eons of time, Lucifer has honed his craft. He is skilled at distraction, distortion, deception, and misdirection. I plead with you to avoid his cunning snares as you would avoid a plague!”1 As you read that last sentence with today’s perspective, it is impossible to misunderstand the urgency of President Nelson’s plea.

Think how dramatically the current pandemic has altered our lives. In a split second, everything changed. In one way or another, each of us has been affected by this plague. There have been lost freedoms, lost jobs, and lost lives. It will take years to recover.

The same will be true if we get caught in Satan’s cunning snares. I find President Nelson’s use of the word skilled chilling. Satan is skilled at distracting us and deceiving us. He will distort the truth. And he would love to divert us from looking in the right places for answers to our spiritual questions. Those are his cunning snares! We must avoid them as we would avoid a plague!

We simply cannot navigate through the challenges of life alone. We can’t! We need constant help from heaven. Recently M. Russell Ballard encouraged us to “rely more fully upon God and to turn [our] hearts to Him through sincere prayer. Seeking heaven’s inspiration to endure or conquer what is before us will be our safest and surest way to move confidently forward through these troubling times.”2

I love this reminder from Boyd K. Packer, “Prayer is your personal key to heaven.”3 We really do have a loving Father in Heaven who is eager to help us and to answer our prayers. I know that! Whenever I sincerely ask for answers to pressing questions, the answers always come. There have been times when my prayers were not answered in the way I desired, but He softened my heart to accept His will.

Prayer is powerful! It can change us. It can give us courage. It can give us strength. “Let us remember and appreciate the power of prayer.”2

References:

1. Prophets, Leadership, and Divine Law – Russel M. Nelson

2. Watch Ye Therefore, and Pray Always – M. Russell Ballard

3. Prayer and Promptings – Boyd K. Packer

Love Life!

Many years ago, Russell M. Nelson gave this advice, which seems especially necessary right now, “Love life! Cherish each moment as a blessing from God. Live it well—even to your loftiest potential.”1 With the craziness and chaos all around us, loving life requires us to be more thoughtful and more intentional about what we allow into our lives. It requires us to be more focused on the good and especially on God.

Can we truly love life without having peace in our life? Can we live life to our loftiest potential without striving to live peaceably? I don’t think so. Is it possible to be peaceable when contention seems to be everywhere? Yes, it is!

One of the greatest examples of this is found in the Book of Mormon. The prophet Mormon described wars and wickedness that are hard to comprehend. Yet he recognized the followers of Christ because of their “peaceable walk with the children of men.”2 Those words have always intrigued me. What exactly does a peaceable walk look like, especially in extremely challenging times? I’ve reflected on that many times but more so lately. The other day I got the best answer!

I was listening to Sheri Dew’s interview with the prophet’s wife, Wendy Nelson. One of the questions Sister Dew asked was, “President Nelson gave a talk called ‘Hear Him.’ What have you learned about hearing Him, how to hear Him, from being married to President Nelson?” This is part of Sister Nelson’s answer, “To hear Him, … we absolutely remove anything that prevents the Spirit from being in our home in full abundance. An example is zero contention. I thought that was an impossible thing. … [L]iterally, if we would be watching a movie, and there would be contention, he needed to turn it off. If there was a sporting game, but it became contentious rather than competitive, he would turn it off. So anything that offends the Spirit —contention. … Our home is designed by both of us to make sure that the Spirit can be there in full abundance so that hearing Him is always on our mind.”3

That is what walking peaceably looks like!

Begin today, as Jeffrey R. Holland challenged us, “to be peacemakers—to love peace, to seek peace, to create peace, to cherish peace.”4

As we do, we will be among those who our prophet today will recognize as followers of Christ because of our peaceable walk with each other. “Love life! Cherish each moment as a blessing from God. Live it well—even to your loftiest potential.”1

References:

1. Doors of Death – Russell M. Nelson

2. Moroni 7:4

3. Wendy Nelson Interview – Church News Podcast

4. The Ministry of Reconciliation – Jeffrey R. Holland

Do What Matters Most

As 2020 comes to an end, I think we will all shout a collective “hallelujah!” Perhaps more than any other time, we anxiously await a new year, sincerely wanting our lives to be better. While it is customary around this time of year to take an inventory of our lives, asking ourselves questions like “What have I learned? What do I want to improve? What do I want to add? What do I want to eliminate?”, our answers will probably be quite different from previous years.

Hopefully one thing 2020 has given us is a clearer perspective. I have thought often over these last several months about something David A. Bednar shared in general conference five years ago. He had gone to visit Robert D. Hales who had been seriously ill. Elder Bednar asked what lessons he had learned as he had gotten older and experienced severe health challenges. Elder Hales said, “When you cannot do what you have always done, then you only do what matters most.”1 Elder Bednar went on to say, “Physical restrictions can expand vision. … Inability to do many things can direct focus to a few things of greatest importance.”1 Oh, how well that applies to this year!

A few months into the pandemic, we started hearing that life would not be returning to normal any time soon and that we needed to accept a “new normal.” I really disliked those words! I didn’t want a new normal! I wanted my life just like it was before. My heart softened to that phase when it was uttered by our dear prophet. I was given a clearer perspective. He said, “Today we often hear about ’a new normal.’ If you really want to embrace a new normal, I invite you to turn your heart, mind, and soul increasingly to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Let that be your new normal.”2

An invitation from the prophet is profoundly personal. President Nelson’s words were exactly what I needed to hear. No matter what other limitations and restrictions were placed upon me, my access to heaven was unrestricted. Whatever else is going on or not going on around me, what is going on inside of me is of most importance. The word increasingly reminds me of the constant and consistent effort that is required. I can and must be moving closer to my Heavenly Father and the Savior—every day. A beautiful thing happens when we turn to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ—we feel more love for our family and friends and desire to serve and bless those around us.

With clearer perspective, a new year begins. Some things that once seemed so important have now found their proper place in my life. Other things have taken on added and more profound meaning. I have come to more fully appreciate Elder Bednar’s words, “Inability to do many things can direct focus to a few things of greatest importance.”1 What are the things of greatest importance in our lives? What will our focus be in 2021? What really are those things that matter most? More than once President Nelson has reminded us to keep our focus on the Savior, the most recent being just a few weeks ago when he told us, “There is nothing more important we can do … than to rivet our focus on the Savior.”3

I can’t imagine a better New Year’s resolution than that!

References:

1. Chosen to Bear Testimony of My Name – David A. Bednar

2. A New Normal – Russell M. Nelson

3. Divine Gifts – Russell M. Nelson

Love What He Loves

No matter who the Savior was speaking to, His invitation was the same: “Come, follow me.” When we choose to follow Him, we not only choose to do what He would do, but we choose to, as Ronald A. Rasband taught, “love what He loves: humility, meekness, steadfastness, charity, courage, compassion, forgiveness, and obedience.”1 I think that is profound! Can I honestly say I love humility? Or meekness? Or courage? Or obedience? But that is exactly what I must do if I am truly following the Savior.

With Christmas just two weeks away, a perfect way to help us follow the Savior would be to study His attributes. I invite you to make a list of the attributes of Christ and then choose one attribute each day to focus on. Find ways to implement it into your life. Look for that attribute in others. Record what you learn each day. At the end of the two weeks, see if you have learned to love what He loves even more. What better gift can we give the Savior than to truly follow Him by being like Him.

May we daily strive to follow the Savior and emulate His divine character. As we do, we will “yearn to be more meek, more pure, more steadfast, more Christlike.”2 Those yearnings will take us to our knees because we can never become who we are to become without heaven’s help. I love this reminder from Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Christlike attributes are gifts from God. They cannot be developed without His help.”3

References:

1. Recommend to the Lord – Ronald A. Rasband

2. Consider the Goodness and Greatness of God – Dale G. Renlund

3. Christlike Attributes–the Wind Beneath our Wings – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Blessed by Gratitude

What an incredible month this has been! When I decided to turn November into 30 days of gratitude, I could scarcely have imagined the sweet stirrings I would feel. And what enhanced those feelings even more was when President Russell M. Nelson invited us all to flood the earth with expressions of gratitude on our social media for 7 days. I had been posting inspiring quotes and writing in my gratitude journal every day for nearly three weeks, but this challenge from our prophet changed me and deepened my feelings of gratitude in unimaginable ways. I felt greater happiness, stronger love, and increased peace. This is not surprising though because President Nelson knew that is how we would all feel. We are always blessed when we follow the prophet!

Another prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, once said, “Walk with gratitude before Him who is the giver of life and every good gift.”1 I hope November was just the beginning for each of us and not the end. Our lives will truly be richer if every day we walk with gratitude in our hearts for a loving Heavenly Father and for every good gift He gives us.

As we now turn to the Christmas season, I hope our hearts are overflowing with gratitude for God’s greatest gift to us—the gift of His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

Earlier this year, Elder Dale G. Renlund taught, “Each of us has received gifts that we could not provide for ourselves, gifts from our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, including redemption through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We have received life in this world; we will receive physical life in the hereafter, and eternal salvation and exaltation—if we choose it—all because of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Every time we use, benefit from, or even think of these gifts, we ought to consider the sacrifice, generosity, and compassion of the givers. Reverence for the givers does more than just make us grateful. Reflecting on Their gifts can and should transform us.”2

President Nelson’s 7-day challenge indeed was transformative. Elder Renlund also gave us an invitation, though his seems to be more of a lifelong challenge. He said, “I invite you to remember each day the greatness of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and what They have done for you. Let your consideration of Their goodness more firmly bind your wandering heart to Them. Ponder Their compassion, and you will be blessed with added spiritual sensitivity and become more Christlike.”2

I gladly accept this challenge and hope you will too! And as we remember Their goodness and Their compassion, may we express our gratitude to Them by offering that same kind of love and compassion to others. Imagine how wonderful this Christmas season will be if we all will do that!

References:

1. With all Thy Getting Get Understanding – Gordon B. Hinckley

2. Consider the Goodness and Greatness of God – Dale G. Renlund

Count It All Joy

Count it all joy – what a great scriptural reminder we find in James 1:2! President Russell M. Nelson has taught that joy is “a principle that will only become more important as the tragedies and travesties around us increase.”1 Does that sound a little like this year? Interestingly, the entire scripture reads, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”2 In the Joseph Smith Translation, the last few words are “when ye fall into many afflictions.”3 Many afflictions? Absolutely! What about different temptations? I’m sure there have been at least a few times this year when we’ve been tempted to complain, to get upset, to give up, to be unkind. And yet, we are to count it all joy.

President Nelson reminded us that “joy … as little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation … and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives.”1

When everything started shutting down, I found myself focusing on what I couldn’t do. I could no longer go to the temple or to church, go on vacation or out to dinner. I was allowing restrictions—circumstances—to blur my focus. Places, as wonderful as they may be, are not the source of my joy.

Luckily it didn’t take me too long to get my focus where it belonged. Never before have I felt such a longing to be in the temple, been more anxious to hear from the prophet, so excited for general conference, and more eager to go to church. The sacrament has become more sacred, the temple more cherished, family more valued, and the living prophet more important.

Through this year of tragedies and travesties, temptations and afflictions, I am more profoundly grateful for my family, my faith, and my friends. Yes, I can count it all joy.

References:

1. Joy and Spiritual Survival – Russell M. Nelson

2. James 1:2

3. James 1:2 – Joseph Smith Translation