Sunday Thoughts

Last week's Relief Society lesson was on Obedience and the teacher (who is a therapist) asked some poignant questions and pushed us spiritually (which I really appreciated). I think we have such a tendency, as members of the church, to feel like we're hearing the same lessons all the time and that we already know all about each topic, but since we're always expanding our understanding and levels of commitment these repeated lessons hit us differently each time...I love that!

She had everyone participate in making this list of reasons why we're obedient and why we're not obedient and then pointed out that most of our reasons are spiritually immature. I had never thought of it that way before, but she is totally right. If we obey Heavenly Father because we fear punishment, that is a spiritually immature reason for being obedient...it's still better than not obeying Him, but it's not the best reason for doing so. Ultimately we should be obedient to the Lord because we love Him.

• How willing are you to to be obedient?
• Do you trust God?
• Do you know God?
• We are taught through our own experiences.
• Ask yourself..."Why am I obedient?
• Obedience can become a habit, so that it doesn't have to be a decision every time.
• How many times are we afraid to obey?
• How often do we ask God why?
• It takes courage to want certain blessings because we know what it may take to receive them.
• What is my level of obedience to Heavenly Father? 
• Do I pick and choose which commandments to obey? 
• Am I only willing to be obedient to a certain level before it's too uncomfortable?
• What makes me hesitate before I obey?

In the end she challenged us to pick out a Conference Talk that may be a challenge for us (not our usual go-to subjects) and to wrestle with ourselves as we work to overcome those issues. I loved it that she ended her lesson with a challenge/assignment and I appreciate all the questions she posed in this lesson. I am an obedient person, but my reasons are mostly spiritually immature (though I had never realized that before) so now I will be working to change that about myself.

**Thoughts??**

Comment Window Tidbit: It's already the last Sunday in June, that's freaking me out! I haven't wanted to savor a summer vacation this much since I was a kid!

Sunday Thoughts

Today has been a great Sunday thus far and I'm feeling so grateful. Each week I pray to feel the Spirit and to hear what I need to hear, and I always come away being glad I went to church and grateful for the things I've learned. But today was one of those days where I felt like I was positively beaming with the Spirit.


I shared my testimony in Sacrament Meeting, which I haven't done in over a year. I talked about my testimony of obedience and that by doing the things we've been asked to do we find true happiness. I truly believe this and have felt such an increase in faith and spiritual strength over these past 2 years of daily scripture reading with the family and by myself, and through our consistency with family prayers morning and night and weekly Family Home Evenings.


I have learned that these things are NOT hard to do once we commit to doing them. I don't know why I thought they were hard for so long. I guess I didn't really want to do them and wasn't committed to doing what was asked of us. But now that we have, I KNOW we are blessed daily.


Like everything in life, it is our personal experience with things that teaches us. We can be inspired by the things other people do, but ultimately we have to do them ourselves if we want to test God's promises and know without a doubt that things are true.


Sometimes it feels like there is just too much to do, too many obligations, too many "shoulds" in life, but I think this is one of Satan's ways of running interference and keeping us from doing the things that will bring true peace and happiness. We filter out the nonsense and focus on the things we know will have the most impact and take us where we want to go.

We can choose to have hope, choose to have faith, choose to be obedient, and put those things into practice then see what will happen. The Lord keeps ALL of His promises, we're the ones who complicate things.

**Thoughts??**