Looking for the Gentle Side of God's Commands

I think it is amazing that they hymns are not only inspired in their content, but in their sequence.  Right after "Be Still, My Soul" with it's line of "the Lord is on thy side," comes "How Gentle God's Commands" and how we can "cast our burden at His feet and bear a song away."  What a beautiful follow-up!



As I pondered on these two hymns this morning in the respite of sitting on the bench, waiting for my team's turn to play basketball, the phrase "how gentle God's commands" stuck with me...

"gentle"..."command"....

These two words seem so opposite!  I have often looked at this line and focused on the part of "giving up my burden to Him," and I guess I always thought the gentleness was in the giving up of my tasks to His capable shoulders.

I never thought of there being a gentleness to His commands.

I tend to focus on the impossibility of a task before me, on the difficulty, on the challenge that seems to be required.

Could it be there is a gentle side that lies within the command itself?

For instance, as I prepare for a young acting group I felt prompted to take responsibility for, all I can think of is how far "behind" I am and how prone to failure and mistakes I seem to be.  I look at the time my emotional and physical preparation seem to take me away from my family, the very people I am doing it for!

Could it be that there is a joyful and gentle side in this journey to get this acting group to the end?  Time spent with wonderful youth, including my own....shared experience in meaningful production....time to laugh and create together with my kids...

Somehow, I suspect, if I can focus on that aspect, the gentle side of God's command, then the burden will be lifted, not by the removal of the task, but in how I handle it.

May the Lord help me to see it ever thus, the gentle side of all His commands...

pray in faith...and then DO

First off, this woman is barely supplying the basic needs of her family.  Sometimes, that is all I feel I am doing.

She looks around, and sees that her children are gone.  I can only imagine the feelings of her heart...her despair.

I see her fall down in despair and pray in faith, this simple, beautiful woman.  Then she stands up, resolute, and starts moving, running, in the direction her faith takes her.  And she finds her children.

Sometimes I let my lack of faith limit my motion.  I let my fear keep me immobile, fear of the unknown, fear of making the wrong choice, fear of letting people down.

Today the message God had for me was pray in faith,...and then move.  You will see the path unfold before you...

How to take a little time to add time to your life...

I try to read an ensign article or words of the prophets daily to keep my soul and heart in harmony with truth...at least for a few moments :).   Today, I opened up to the most recent First Presidency message by Elder Eyring in the Ensign called "Recognize, Remember, and Give Thanks." ("Felismerés, emlékezés és hálaadás")  These are normally pretty short, and are the words of men we recognize as inspired with God's message for us in these latter-days...I figure I should keep up to speed :).

A phrase caught my heart this morning: "It is easy for us to become mechanical in our prayers of gratitude, often repeating the same words but without the intent to give our thanks as a gift of the heart to God."  "Guilty as charged," I ruefully thought.  "Mechanical" describes my prayers all too often :S!  But I had never thought of giving our thanks as a "gift of the heart to God."

The Holy Ghost brings back memories of what God has taught us. And one of the ways God teaches us is with His blessings; and so, if we choose to exercise faith, the Holy Ghost will bring God’s kindnesses to our remembrance.

You could test that in prayer today. You could follow the command “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things” (D&C 59:7).

I tried it...it was amazing.  It was like my mind jumped from blessing to blessing and I felt my heart get lighter and lighter.

 You could try [expressing gratitude] as you write an entry in your journal. The Holy Ghost has helped people with that since the beginning of time. You remember that the book of Moses says, “And a book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration” (Moses 6:5).

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) described that process of inspired writing: “Those who keep a book of remembrance are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives. Journals are a way of counting our blessings and of leaving an inventory of these blessings for our posterity.”²

As you start to write, you could ask yourself, “How did God bless me and those I love today?” If you do that often enough and with faith, you will find yourself remembering blessings. And sometimes you will have gifts brought to your mind that you failed to notice during the day but that you will then know were a touch of God’s hand in your life.

I pray that we may make a continuing effort in faith to recognize, remember, and give thanks for what our Heavenly Father and our Savior have done and are doing to open the way home to Them.

I don't believe that doing this takes time out of our lives...I believe it gives time back to us.  It takes away from us the time-consuming tendency to dwell on what we don't have, what is going wrong, and why things aren't working and gives us the perspective of what God is doing in our lives to make things possible.  It is powerful.  It is enabling...and it only takes a few moments :).

a little about me today...

This morning, well, lately, I have been missing so the quiet peace of Hungary...how at the end of the day, the day was done.  We had finished. Whether things were "complete" or not, we just stopped and finished.  Life back here in America doesn't seem to have that...what is the difference?

As I have been trying to prayerfully balance the urgency of groups getting going and the inevitable drama, negotiation, and "checking up on things constantly" that comes with it and the needs of my husband and children to have a safe haven to come home to, not to mention that little thing called "settling in," I have felt a little daunted at times.  Well, not so much daunted as a little wistful.  I know God is with me. I know things will "work out" as I have seen in the past with me consistently not being as prepared as I would like to be but being as prepared as I need to be for God to do His work through me.  Like in the story of Gideon in the Bible, sometimes God takes away our support and confidence in numbers so that we can see that the work is truly His, as I was so beautifully reminded in the Veggie Tales version of that story. (Priceless.)

Yet, sometimes I would just like to see that the little I am doing in the moment, as I seem to wander in circles with a book in my hand putting out fires, is enough. Sure, at the end I see it, but sometimes it is hard to know and feel peace in the journey.

This morning, as I took my sit on the bench waiting for my turn to play basketball again with the group of guys Q-dawg and I play with three mornings a week, I pulled up Q-dawg's phone that has the conference app on it.  I looked at Elder Eyring's talk that we discussed in church on Sunday, and decided to read it again.  It was amazing.  Here are some highlights....

--At this Easter season we are reminded of why we love Him and of the promise He makes to His faithful disciples to become His beloved friends. The Savior made that promise and told us how, in our service to Him, He comes to us. One example is in a revelation to Oliver Cowdery as he served the Lord with the Prophet Joseph Smith in the translation of the Book of Mormon: “Behold, thou art Oliver, and I have spoken unto thee because of thy desires; therefore treasure up these words in thy heart. Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love.”²

I experienced the joy of coming closer to the Savior and of His coming closer to me most often through simple acts of obedience to the commandments.

You have had such experiences. It may have been when you chose to attend a sacrament meeting. It was for me on a Sabbath when I was very young. In those days we received the sacrament during an evening meeting. The memory of one day more than 65 years ago, when I kept the commandment to gather with my family and with the Saints, still draws me closer to the Savior.

It was dark and cold outside. I remember feeling light and warmth in the chapel that evening with my parents. We partook of the sacrament, administered by Aaronic Priesthood holders, covenanting with our Heavenly Father to always remember His Son and keep His commandments.

At the end of the meeting we sang the hymn “Abide with Me; ’Tis Eventide,” with the words in it “O Savior, stay this night with me.”³

I felt the Savior’s love and closeness that evening. And I felt the comfort of the Holy Ghost.

After reading that this morning, I pulled out the hymn and sang it to myself.  What a beautiful reminder of the Savior's presence, that when we ask Him to be near us, when we draw near to Him. 

The Savior made that promise and told us how, in our service to Him, He comes to us.

I know that what I am doing is God's will, even if I don't feel sufficient for it, just as I know that I need to write these words even if I can't get them out of this RIDICULOUS italics mode. (You name it, I've tried it...) See?  How can a woman so riddled with imperfection still hope to be sufficient?

Remember, Mary, God uses the broken pots to create beauty.  How does it always seem to come back to that :)....

When I think of the Savior and try to do something to draw closer to Him, my fear, my doubt, my wavering diminishes, even if just a little, and if I just sit still and think of Him, read of Him, or sing of Him, somehow I feel peace.