The Plan

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Post 3- taking things for granted     Post 4- our identity     Post 5- relationship with God     Post 6- purpose of challenges on earth     Post 7- life after death     Post 8- ponder in your own sacred grove     Post 9- reflect and ponder     Post 10- gratitude     Post 11- seek the spirit daily     Post 12- focus on the good

[The Plan post #1]

We’re going to talk about perspective. Specifically about how knowing God’s plan can help us change our perspective. Our discussion will be based on a talk from General Conference called, “O How Great the Plan of Our God!” by President Uchtdorf.

[The Plan post #2]

Link to video on Mormon Channel.

Think about how the perspective of these two boys changed from the beginning, to the middle, to the end of their experience?

[The Plan post #3] – Taking Things for Granted

I don’t know about you, but I can really relate to this statement from President Uchtdorf. “The more adept I get at technology, the more I take it for granted…. if there is a delay of even a few seconds, we get frustrated and impatient.” The computer is running slow, the internet not working, or messages disappearing before they are sent are some of the most frustrating things. When things with our computers, phones, or tablets don’t work exactly right some of us get really impatient with the device or with ourselves. In those moments it helps me be a little more patient when I realize what I’m expecting to do. I’m expecting to access enormous amounts of information instantaneously without getting off my couch or I am attempting to communicate with someone without leaving my house. It wasn’t that many years ago that this would have seemed miraculous and impossible, but now it is so commonplace that we get impatient and frustrated when our devices don’t work like we know they can.

Think of other inventions that are common to us….toilets, lights, cars, pens, facebook, microwaves…what would life be like without those?

It may not be that big of a deal to overlook the miracle of technology and other inventions whenever we use them, but that same mindset often spills over into other parts of our life and we begin to take for granted things that are familiar or common to us. We know this is and will become more and more of a problem because President Uchtdorf was inspired to discuss this with us in conference. And as a prophet he warns and cautions against trends and habits that can pull us away from the happiness, strength, and peace of the gospel. So when he asks this question, it is one we would do well to contemplate and ponder. He asks,

“Do We Take Spiritual Truths for Granted?”

(The answer is probably yes to some degree. So perhaps we should ask ourselves, “HOW do we take spiritual truths for granted?”)

He continues, “In the Church of Jesus Christ, we have been given so much. We are surrounded by such an astonishing wealth of light and truth that I wonder if we truly appreciate what we have….We tread a path covered with diamonds, but we can scarcely distinguish them from ordinary pebbles.”

uncut diamonds

If you were walking down a path and found the rocks in the picture, would you stop to pick them up? I might, because they are pretty and I like rocks. But if I did, I don’t think I would realize what I had. Those rocks are un-cut diamonds and in that form are certainly not as recognizable as what we think of as a diamond and quite possibly would be overlooked unless we knew what to look for.

Over the next few days we’ll talk about what we have in the gospel, the perspective that can give us and how we can keep that perspective in order to see and recognize the gems in our path.

 

[The Plan post #4] – Our Identity

President Uchtdorf says, “I am grateful that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ has answers to the most complex questions in life. These answers are taught in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are true, plain, straightforward, and easy to understand. They are inspired, and we teach them to our three-year-olds in the Sunbeam class.” Those answers come as we learn about and understand the great plan of our Heavenly Father. That plan is pretty familiar to many of us. We lived with God before this life. We came to earth to get a body and to learn and grow so we could become like God. When we die our body and our spirit will be separated for a time before we are resurrected. Then, if we have kept His commandments, we will live with God again and have all the blessings He has.

Sometimes because we are so familiar with the plan we take it for granted and we don’t feel the power and perspective that comes from the knowledge of our eternal purpose, direction, and possibility.

Let’s start at the beginning. We lived with God before we were born. “We are the literal spirit children of divine, immortal, and omnipotent Heavenly Parents!” That is who we are!

Watch this video about Our True Identity. Afterwards take a moment to just be still and let that powerful truth echo in your soul. I AM A CHILD OF GOD! “This knowledge changes everything…” How has it changed things for you?

Our True Identity Video

[The Plan post #5]

What we learn from knowing God’s Plan…

1) Pre-Earth Life: Identity, Relationship with God

We know we lived with God before we came to earth. We were with our Heavenly Father and Mother there. Sometimes in our lives we struggle to know God. But when we remember that we lived with God before this life, we can remember that we already know God! We had a relationship with Him. “We walked with Him in our premortal life. We heard Him speak, witnessed His majesty, learned His ways.” We felt His love there. We knew how much He believes in us and desires for us.

One day He gathered us (all of our brothers and sisters) together in a big family meeting. I’m sure He told us how pleased He was with us. I’m sure He told us how much more He dreamed we could be. Then He told us about an experience He had planned for us that would help us learn the next things we needed to learn. He told us about earth life and bodies. He told us how having bodies would make choices different and harder. He told us how He would still be there to help us just like He always had, but it would be a little harder for us to see it. I’m sure He told us how more than anything He loves us and wanted us to succeed so we could come back to Him. We knew it was true! We were excited for this new experience. Sure, some of our brothers and sisters were worried about the idea of choices with our new bodies so they chose not to come. But we chose to come! We knew that our brother Jesus Christ would come to earth to give us an example and make a way to overcome the barriers of death and sin that would keep us apart from our Heavenly home. We were so grateful! Grateful for the plan and grateful for all the helps that Father would give us and grateful for what Jesus was willing to do.

All of that is what President Uchtdorf was referring to when he said, “You and I participated in a Grand Council where our beloved Father presented His plan for us—that we would come to earth, receive mortal bodies, learn to choose between good and evil, and progress in ways that would not otherwise be possible.”

So now we are on earth and we can’t remember all of those things, but we can feel it is true. One of those helps that our Heavenly Parents gave to us is the Holy Ghost that witnesses to us of things that are true. As I’m writing this I feel that witness. I know it is true. We already know God. He is there for us whenever, WHENEVER we turn to Him. I know that you can also feel that this is true! Ask Him.

When we know about the purpose of our life we can have an eternal perspective. We can remember that the purpose of our life is to rely on God and learn how to make good choices that will lead us back to where we have always wanted to be. God knew it would be hard for us to keep that goal in focus. That is why He has given us so many helps, including repentance. We know He is a loving, caring, wonderful God. We know His greatest purpose is to help us gain the experiences we need in this life in order to be like He is. Thinking about this makes me a little more eager to kneel each night and pray for His strength, comfort, and guidance. It makes me a little more willing to seek out and endure growing experiences and tackle challenges. Knowing this helps me remember that the difficulties I face (and those I see people I love face) are part of this earthly experience. They are temporary. They can be overcome. And if we turn to God which fighting through them, we will succeed. We will be able to return to our Heavenly Parents and receive all the blessings and happiness that we have been promised!

How does this perspective help you in your challenges?

(This version of the song “O My Father” is sung to a different tune and was created to memory of someone, we see her picture at the end. But think of the words and look at the pictures as you listen. This song says much of what was discussed in this post.)

Other resources:

[The Plan post #6]

What we learn from knowing God’s Plan…

1) Pre-Earth Life: Relationship with God, Identity

2) Earth Life:

Remember, we’re trying to draw power from the knowledge we have and really ponder the significance and implication of what we have been taught, instead of taking it for granted because it is so common and familiar to us. As you read these paragraphs from President Uchtdorf’s talk about our earth life, what do you see that gives you that power?

“When we passed through the veil and entered this mortal life, we knew that we would no longer remember the life before. There would be opposition and adversity and temptation. But we also knew that gaining a physical body was of paramount importance for us. Oh, how we hoped that we would quickly learn to make the correct choices, withstand the temptations of Satan, and eventually return to our beloved Parents in Heaven.”

“We knew we would sin and make mistakes—perhaps even serious ones. But we also knew that our Savior, Jesus Christ, had pledged to come to earth, live a sinless life, and voluntarily lay down His life in an eternal sacrifice. We knew that if we gave our heart to Him, trusted Him, and strived with all the energy of our soul to walk in the path of discipleship, we could be washed clean and once again enter the presence of our beloved Father in Heaven.”

“So, with faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you and I accepted, by our free will, Heavenly Father’s plan. That is why we are here on this beautiful planet earth—because God offered us the opportunity, and we chose to accept it.”

I see that we knew we would face challenges and we still chose to come here. We knew they would help us grow, in fact we knew we wouldn’t be able to grow without them.

I see that our bodies, imperfect as they are, are the beautiful and essential gift that we were given when we came to earth. We would not be able to have this experience without them. A body is the gift that satan and his followers were not given because they chose not to come to earth. Now they are jealous. So many temptations focus on our body….not liking ourselves because we don’t like how our body looks or works, not taking care of our body in one way or another, or giving in to any number of natural man cravings or tendencies. Those are all things that makes satan happy.

I see that God knew we would make mistakes. He prepared for that in this great plan by having a Savior for us. So as we go through life and come to hard spots, we’re not suppose to handle them on our own  (like the brother in the video in post #2) we can rely on Christ to give us the help we need to make it up and over that challenge. We can feel relief and gratitude to be another step closer to our goal of returning home.

I see that we chose to follow God’s plan before. If we did it before, we have the ability to do it again.

What else do you see in his comments that gives you comfort, strength, or purpose to continue on your journey?

This song helps me remember that our challenges have a purpose. We don’t have trials and hard days just because we are bad. They are a vital part of our journey to be even more of the glorious, wonderful being God knows we are.

[The Plan post #7]

What we learn from knowing God’s Plan…

1) Pre-Earth Life: Relationship with God, Identity

2) Earth Life: Chose to Come, Trials are Part of the Experience, Bodies are a Gift, God Knew We’d Make Mistakes, We Chose God’s Plan Before

3) Life After Death:

 

We’ve talked about great perspective from our earth life and our life before.

“Our mortal life, however, is only temporary and will end with the death of our physical body. But the essence of who you and I are will not be destroyed. Our spirits will continue living and await the Resurrection—a free gift to all by our loving Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. At the Resurrection, our spirits and bodies will be reunited, free from pain and physical imperfections.”

We will live again! We will be reunited with loved ones!  And not only that, our bodies will be made perfect. What great news for anyone who has ever suffered physical pain, deformity or disability. Some of us may think that may mean that our bodies will look really different than they do now, but that may not be the case. God doesn’t view our appearance as imperfect in the same way many of us do.

“After the Resurrection, there will be a Day of Judgment. While all will eventually be saved and inherit a kingdom of glory, those who trust in God and seek to follow His laws and ordinances will inherit lives in the eternities that are unimaginable in glory and overwhelming in majesty. That Day of Judgment will be a day of mercy and love—a day when broken hearts are healed, when tears of grief are replaced with tears of gratitude, when all will be made right.”

Some of us read that statement and immediately disagree, thinking it won’t be a great day for them. We are not the judge! God is. Sometimes we are our own worst critic and that self-judgment ends up holding us back. Leave the judging to our kind, loving, merciful, consistent God. And remember that the final judgement is not a top secret end tally of all our acts on earth. We can talk to God right now, or anytime we want to, and ask Him how we are doing. He will tell us. He will encourage us to move in the right direction. He will help us get there. And He looks at our desires and the direction we’re headed, not how much we’ve done.

As we work with Him to improve and progress we won’t be surprised when we stand before the Savior and the Father one day. We can know they both love us greatly. And if we’ve developed a relationship with Christ in this life and learned to let Him help us, think how wonderful it will be to stand with Him before the Father and to feel once again that our brother and friend, Jesus Christ, has our back as He speaks to the Father in our behalf.

“Yes, there will be deep sorrow because of sin. Yes, there will be regrets and even anguish because of our mistakes, our foolishness, and our stubbornness that caused us to miss opportunities for a much greater future. But I have confidence that we will not only be satisfied with the judgment of God; we will also be astonished and overwhelmed by His infinite grace, mercy, generosity, and love for us, His children.”

__

Quotes are from Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

[The Plan post #8]

Joseph Smith was seeking answers and inspiration from God. He knew what he needed could only come from God. We’ve been talking about God’s great plan and how to make sure we can feel it’s power everyday and not take it for granted. That power can only come from God. Can we follow Joseph’s example and take some time to find a quiet spot to talk to God about it, to ask our questions, and to have Him remind us of what we know? It may be hard to find the time or even a quiet place, but taking time to ponder, to reflect and to let God’s voice (through the Spirit) echo in our soul does bring power and strength into our life. It’s one of the most important things we can do. If we don’t take time to seek out and listen to the voice of God all we will hear is the noise and chaos of voices that are contrary to God’s. Reflecting doesn’t have to take a long time. And if you can’t find a place where it’s quiet or you’re alone, perhaps you could invite the people around you to reflect with you.

I urge you to take a few minutes (now or plan a time for later today). Listen to this song. Then ponder on the amazing truths that God has revealed to you. You could read through the posts from the last few days if you want to. I know that the Spirit will come to you to testify of the importance and truth of God’s wonderful plan.

It would be very appropriate to write down some of the thoughts and feelings that come during these moments. Those feelings, recorded in your own words, can be a great source of strength to you later on.

Please make the effort. Find your own sacred grove. Let God speak to you. I know He will.

[The Plan post #9]

We’ve been talking about the Plan of God which contains so many beautiful, powerful and eternal truths of the gospel. We especially want to know how to make sure we feel the power of those truths in our daily life so we can keep an eternal perspective. President Uchtdorf shares a few key points in these paragraphs from his talk. (Especially pay attention to the second paragraph.)

“…Think of how you felt when for the first time you believed and understood that you are truly a child of God; that Jesus Christ willingly suffered for your sins so that you may be clean again; that priesthood power is real and can bind you to your loved ones for time and for all eternity; that there is a living prophet on the earth today. Isn’t that wonderful and amazing?

“Considering all of this, how could it ever be possible that we of all people would not be excited about attending our Church worship services? Or get tired of reading the holy scriptures? I suppose this could be possible only if our hearts were past feeling to experience gratitude and awe for the sacred and sublime gifts God has granted us. Life-changing truths are before our eyes and at our fingertips, but sometimes we sleepwalk on the path of discipleship. Too often we let ourselves be distracted by the imperfections of our fellow members instead of following the example of our Master.”

Even though he wonders how it’s possible, many of us do have those times when we aren’t excited to go to church and we don’t take time to read our scriptures. I believe he is telling us the cause (or the solution) for those things. So, what else do you see in his message? How can we make sure we keep an eternal perspective? How can we make sure to feel the power of the gospel truths that we know instead of taking them for granted? (Go back and re-read that paragraph.)

One way he said that we become “past feeling” or take for granted the power of the plan is when we don’t feel “awe” for what we know. That is what we talked about yesterday…taking times to ponder and reflect so we can know and feel the majesty and power of the truth we are so familiar with. (It’s not too late to read and do the challenge from yesterday’s post if you haven’t, or do it again if you have).

What other things do you see in that paragraph that can help us?

[The Plan post #10]

Gratitude is another way we can keep the right perspective and not take gospel truths for granted. It seems that gratitude keeps coming up in our discussions. That says to me that it must be a powerful tool.

The gratitude we’re talking about, the kind that changes our perspective and lifts us up, isn’t a simple, automatic thank you we may say without thinking about it. It is the kind of gratitude where we take a deep breath, think about how our life would be without a certain thing, and then with feeling that reaches our soul we say words that somehow feel inadequate…”thank you!”

That heartfelt gratitude can be for simple things like pens, for more complex things like toilets and electronics, and it can certainly be for eternal and life changing things like friends and the Atonement. But whatever we’re feeling thankful for, gratitude is a habit we can create in ourselves. It seems to go along with taking time to reflect and ponder that we just discussed. So how do you get in, or strengthen, a grateful habit?

Here are some ideas that might help:

  • Choose to express more gratitude in your prayers. Pick a number like 1, or 5, or more. Every time you pray say that number of things you’re grateful for before you move onto the rest of your prayer. Don’t always say the same things. And if at first you can’t think of that number keep thinking!
  • Set a goal to express gratitude to a certain number of people or a certain number of times in a day. Make a sign to remind you.
  • Play the Grateful Game with someone. Say something you’re grateful for and then they say something they are grateful for. And then it’s your turn again. It may sound silly when we call it a game, but this simple activity can help pull you out of a negative perspective and because you are with someone else you may see blessings you didn’t already see. You could also try to list something that you’re grateful for that begins with each letter of the alphabet.
  • Write something in a gratitude journal every day! We’ve mentioned President Eyring and his gratitude journal several times before, but that is because it is a powerful tool for increasing gratitude and awareness of our blessings. 
  • Ask someone else to share something they are grateful for. You could tell them that you’re trying to be more grateful and then share something you’re grateful for with them.
  • Pray to see your blessings more clearly or to be more grateful.

For more thoughts you can look back on the posts about Gratitude in this study group. 

[The Plan post #11]

How to feel the power of gospel truths daily:

  1. Reflect & Ponder
  2. Gratitude

I have been in many young women classes where I have asked the girls when they felt the spirit. Often the answer was something like, “This past summer at girl’s camp.” Although I wouldn’t say it out loud, my mind would say, “What? That was months ago!” I’m pretty sure these girls were referring to when they had a memorable and powerful spiritual experience. But I really hoped that it wasn’t their most recent one. We can have spiritual experiences much more often than that!

How about you? When was the last time you felt the Spirit? When was the last time you had a powerful Spiritual experience?

Perhaps you have to think back a while.

Perhaps it’s been really recent.

Perhaps you’re like me and have a bad memory so you can’t remember.

Whatever the case, it’s important to know that God didn’t intend for us to have one monumental spiritual experience to carry us through our whole life. If that was the case then I don’t think He would have given us the Holy Ghost as our constant companion or made it so we have time during the sacrament each week to ponder and feel the Spirit. Sure, we can have experiences that we remember for a long time, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continually seek to feel and be guided by the Spirit. Even Joseph Smith who had a very powerful spiritual experience with the First Vision continually sought and was blessed with more answers, guidance and heavenly help. And he wrote it down. (That’s something that can help all of us, especially those of us who have a hard time remembering spiritual moments.)

As we’re trying to keep an eternal perspective and feel the power of gospel truths daily, in addition to reflecting on what we know about the gospel and expressing gratitude, we can also continually seek learning and spiritual experiences. We can pray for them. We can make sure we’re doing things that God has asked us to do (pray, read scriptures, go to church) so we are where we should be, in the mindset we should be in and ready to receive His answers. For Joseph Smith, spiritual moments seemed to come when He had a question and asked God about it. That is something we can do as well.

This video is the theme video for the youth for 2017 (based on James 1:5-6 which lead Joseph to the sacred grove to pray). It reminds us that when we ask God He will answer. When we ask God for spiritual experiences He will answer! Then it’s up to us to act on that answer. When we do, we will feel closer to God. We will learn and feel spiritual witnesses of great eternal truths. We will be guided to do things that will lead us to more spiritual experiences. We will be able to have those moments often and powerfully!

[The Plan post #12]

How to feel the power of gospel truths daily:

1- Reflect & Ponder

2- Gratitude

3- Seek learning and spiritual experiences daily

4-

We have talked about quite a few “life-changing truths” we have in the gospel. And so far we have talked about 3 things we can do to not take them for granted. Let’s talk about one more.

President Uchtdorf says, “Life-changing truths are before our eyes and at our fingertips, but sometimes we sleepwalk on the path of discipleship. Too often we let ourselves be distracted by the imperfections of our fellow members instead of following the example of our Master.”

He seems to be saying that sometimes we focus on the wrong things. Instead of focusing on the powerful truths of the gospel and letting that motivate us and guide our experiences, we focus on actions of the people at church. Unfortunately since we aren’t perfect, those actions are also less than perfect.

Have you heard the saying, whatever you look for you will find? It’s true.

If you look to see the mistakes people make, you’ll see them.

If you look to see how hard people are trying, you can see that.

If you look to see how how someone made your life harder, you’ll see that.

If you look to see how much God loves someone (even yourself), He will show you that.

If you look for the bad, that is what you will see.

But if you look for the good, that is what you will see.

The actual situation or events aren’t different. It’s our perspective of things that change because of what we’re looking for. Look at the picture.

frog-and-horse

What animals do you see? There are two.

Just like in that picture, in the circumstances in our life we can train ourselves to take a second look to see what else we can see. Our past experiences have trained us to look at things in certain ways. We can choose to keep looking at things that way or we can choose to look at things differently.

We go to church to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ. We go to church to renew our covenants with God during the sacrament. Those two things, believe it or not, are not totally dependent on anyone else…not even the speakers or teachers. Mostly our experience is up to us and our preparation. If we come to church prepared to learn we will be taught by the Holy Ghost no matter what happens with other people.

What about if the speaker is boring? What about if my kids are noisy and take all my focus? What if other people’s kids are noisy? What about….etc, etc, etc. With all of these questions the focus is on the people and not the gospel. We can prepare to go to church. We can try our best to be reverent and listen attentively. Both of those things may be different for each person. But when we do those things, like God has asked us to do, we will receive the blessings promised us and we’ll be taught by the Spirit. The teaching may happen at church, it may happen later. But the blessings will come.

We also go to church to build unity with a ward family to provide strength and support for each of us against the chaos of the world. This one does have to do with other people. But in this case, just like before, when we focus on the gospel instead of the imperfections of people we will be much better off. We’ll see people as children of God. We’ll see that we all struggle (with the same or different things). We’ll see that we all need God. We’ll see that we all say things we wish we didn’t. We’ll see that we’re all learning to do things better than we did before. We’ll see that God is the judge and no one else. We’ll see that we can help each other. We’ll see that most of the time people are trying to do their best.

Let us focus on the remarkable truths of the gospel. Let us try to be like the Savior, understanding and non-judgmental of others. Let us try to find ways to build each other. Let us ponder on the truths of the gospel and let us share those uplifting thoughts and feelings with others. When we make that effort I think we will be in awe at the glory of the gospel and the magnificence of each of the unique children of God.

Photo Sources: Uncut Diamonds  Frog/Horse
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