Hello my beautiful family!
I’m fairly sure that most of you were a part of the
introduction last Sunday to the program for youth. In the beginning comments by
President Nelson, I feel like the whole heart of the matter was stated: this program is “to help you strengthen your
faith in Jesus Christ and help you and your family progress along the covenant
path as we face life’s challenges.”
Later, I think Elder Ballard said that “parent’s most
important role is to help their children to connect with heaven to develop the
Gospel-based value system that will anchor them for the challenges in their
life.”
As I’ve watched and read, what impresses me is the
encouragement and challenge that the new
emphasis gives to each of us to seek to hear and follow the voice of the
spirit. Let the spirit be the guide in what we need to work on and do and
become.
Every time we kneel and seek to understand and hear, we
strengthen our capacity to recognize the spirit, we learn and become familiar
with how the spirit communicates with us and the roots of our testimonies
stretch deeper and are more firm, more stable, and a better anchor.
Over the years, I have been impressed again and again with
the wonderful soil that you have all created and maintain in your homes – soil
rich in faith and obedience and willingness to go and do, trusting that
heaven’s help is at-the-ready.
With the Come Follow Me curriculum, this week we are looking
at the book of Ephesians. When going through this book, of course we get to be
reminded of the whole armor of God and the ever-increasing need to have it on
at all times. I remember when Elder Packer first gave the talk that I’ve quoted
from below – it is still very applicable and more real-to-life with all of the
emphasis on home-centeredness.
Boyd K. Packer
April 1995 “The Shield of Faith”
As
it has been since the beginning, the adversary would divide us, break us up,
and if he can, destroy us. But the Lord said, “Lift up your hearts and rejoice,
and gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able
to withstand the evil day, … taking the shield
of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked” (D&C 27:15, 17; emphasis added).
The ministry of the prophets and apostles
leads them ever and always to the home and the family. That shield of faith is
not produced in a factory but at home in a cottage industry.
The ultimate purpose of all we teach is to
unite parents and children in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they are
happy at home, sealed in an eternal marriage, linked to their generations, and
assured of exaltation in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
Lest
parents and children be “tossed to and fro,” and misled by “cunning craftiness”
of men who “lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14), our Father’s
plan requires that, like the generation of life itself, the shield of faith is
to be made and fitted in the family. No two can be exactly alike. Each must be
handcrafted to individual specifications.
The plan designed by the Father contemplates
that man and woman, husband and wife, working together, fit each child
individually with a shield of faith made to buckle on so firmly that it can
neither be pulled off nor penetrated by those fiery darts.
It takes the steady strength of a father to
hammer out the metal of it and the tender hands of a mother to polish and fit
it on. Sometimes one parent is left to do it alone. It is difficult, but it can
be done.
In the Church we can teach about the
materials from which a shield of faith is made: reverence, courage, chastity,
repentance, forgiveness, compassion. In church we can learn how to assemble and
fit them together. But the actual making of and fitting on of the shield of
faith belongs in the family circle. Otherwise it may loosen and come off in a
crisis.
The
prophets and Apostles know full well that the perilous times Paul prophesied
for the last days are now upon us: “Men [are] lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection” (see 2 Tim. 3:1–7).
Knowing it would be so, the Lord warned
that “inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes, …
that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ
the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, … the
sin be upon the heads of the parents.
“For this shall be a law unto the
inhabitants of Zion. …
“And
they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the
Lord” (D&C 68:25–28).
This shield of faith is not manufactured on
an assembly line, only handmade in a cottage industry. Therefore our leaders
press members to understand that what is most worth doing must be done at home.
Some still do not see that too many out-of-home activities, however well
intended, leave too little time to make and fit on the shield of faith at home.
Although our thoughts are centered in this
sacred and solemn assembly on the noble titles High Priest, President, Apostle,
Prophet, Seer, Revelator, the heavens are not offended if we at once speak of
father, mother, child, brother, sister, family: even dad, mom, grandma,
grandpa, baby.
If
you are reverent and prayerful and obedient, the day will come when there will
be revealed to you why the God of heaven has commanded us to address him
as Father, and
the Lord of the Universe as Son. Then
you will have discovered the Pearl of Great Price spoken of in the scriptures
and willingly go and sell all that you have that you might obtain it.
The great plan of happiness (see Alma 42:8, 16) revealed to
prophets is the plan for a happy family. It is the love story between husband
and wife, parents and children, that renews itself through the ages.
The announcement about witnesses yesterday also fits in with
urgency of our invitation and challenge to be an active, participating member
of the Lord’s Battalion (youth and the rest of us). Those vitamins the
President Nelson said we should be taking…. I don’t think he was kidding J
A couple of weeks ago, President Nelson spoke at the BYU
Devotional. His whole talk was excellent, but I especially liked and
appreciated his blessing at the end. I found it transcribed – seems to me it
would be worthwhile to have it hanging over each of our children’s beds as a
constant reminder and hope… here it is.
"Now,
in my capacity as President of the Church, I invoke a blessing upon you, to be able to discern between right and
wrong, between the laws of God and
the conflicting voices of the world. I bless you with power to detect the adversary’s deceptions. I bless you with greater capacity to receive revelation.
And I bless you to be able to feel the
infinite reach of God’s perfect love for you.
I so
bless you and express my love for you, along with my witness that this is the
Lord’s Church and that He presides over and guides all we do, in the sacred
name of Jesus Christ, amen."
President
Russell M. Nelson
17
September 2019
BYU
Devotional
Good'em stuff. You are all great and marvelous blessings for us. We are so pleased to claim each of you as a part of US! We love, Love, LOVE you!!! We want to continue to be a part of your lives and growth, if any of your goals are ones we can participate in, we would be happy to do that (read with you over the phone, prayers for particular challenges, etc.).
Mom, Liz, Grandma Hardy
COMMENTS