Publisher’s
Note: This article is taken from a talk given by Maurine
at the BYU Women’s Conference, May 4 and 5th in
Provo, Utah.
Late Night Blessing
One night several years ago,
we had an older teenaged daughter who did not arrive home
at her 12:00 curfew. One o’clock came and she still wasn’t
there. We did what any good parent would do. We panicked.
We prayed. We made those awkward middle-of-the night
calls to her friends. 2:00 a.m. Our imaginations were
flying with the dangers she could be in. We prayed harder.
I cried with worry. The minutes seemed like hours. 2:30.
2:45. The world was asleep, but not us — two parents
so concerned about their precious daughter.
At last, at 3:00 a.m., we
heard the front door quietly open. We had decided on
a plan to divide and conquer. My husband, Scot, stayed
up in our bedroom and prayed for me while I went down
to greet our daughter. The conversation was just as you
might expect. I pounced on her — not literally, but there
was an edge in my voice. I reminded her of her curfew,
told her of the dangers and temptations abroad in the
late hours of the night, described our painful worry.
She was defensive. She asked if we didn’t trust her.
She told me she was too old for a curfew. The more she
resisted my teaching, the more tension you could feel
between us. I badly needed help to turn this divisive
conversation into a sweet moment of love and teaching.
Just then, I felt the influence of my husband’s prayers
for me and an impression came into my mind. I had been
praying much for this daughter of ours whom I had been
worried about and just a few days earlier, the Spirit
had whispered something about her to me.
I stopped my lesson on curfews
for a moment. I was still and knew that this was the moment
to tell her that message. “Last week,” I said, “the Spirit
told me something about you.” Her defensiveness began
to fall from her. It was the first time she really heard
anything I said. “Tell me,” she said with real eagerness.
I answered, “The Spirit told me not to worry so much about
your life because all things would work out for you, that
everything would be OK.”
“You heard that, Mom?” she
said really eagerly. “What else did the Spirit tell you
about me?” Listen to the faith in her questions. She
believed that God had heard my prayers and answered them.
She believed that he knew her and loved her. When I saw
her as a daughter pushing the limits by coming in late,
he knew her heart and the faith that resided there that
maybe she didn’t even know. Our conversation became sweet
as I told her of the confidence that God had in her and
his personal knowledge of her heart and goodness.
Before, she had been eager
to escape my presence and lecture. Now, she was all ears
and we talked until 4:00. I count it as a treasured hour
in my mothering experience.
Dark Stones Filled with
Light
Our life is like the journey
the Jaredites anticipated across the stormy sea, where
the mountain waves would dash them, they would be carried
here and there by the winds and they would be tossed by
strong currents. This is a journey they could not survive
in the dark.
Was there anything really
wrong with the way I began talking to my daughter? Given
the situation, I was fairly calm, I was clear, I was also
right. The problem was, until the Spirit stepped in with
His light, I was also totally ineffective.
The brother of Jared sought
a remedy for the darkness. Putting his mind and muscle
to the solution, “he did molten out of rock sixteen small
stones, white and clear.” I have tried to imagine the
work and ingenuity it would take to molten stones. What
kind of grueling labor in those times was required to
create a heat source that can molten stones, sweat dripping
from your brow?
Yet still, after all the
brother of Jared could do, after hard labor and effort,
and the best solutions of his own mind, still he had only
16 dark stones. They were only able to shine when they
were touched by the finger of God.
So often we are troubled
and hurried, wearied and overworked. We create the equivalent
of 16 stones in our lives, and that is where we leave
it. The world is so much with us that we do not take
the journey to the mountain top and let the Lord touch
all our dizzying effort with his finger and fill it with
light. Until he does, however, we are still traveling
in the darkness.
Busy and hurried, too often
we take “natural man” solutions, rushing from one task
to another, checking off the items on our lists to do
in a mad frenzy without the transforming power that spiritual
insight always brings. The alarm rings in the morning,
and we are off and running, too often without climbing
the mountain to have the stony pieces of our lives touched
with light.
The True Meaning of Blindness
The scriptures have a phrase
for this hurry in the darkness. They speak of people
who suffer from “the blindness of their minds.” The original
Greek of this word “blindness” yields some profound understanding.
The word is po-ro-sis, which means to cover with
a callous, obtuseness, stripped of mental discernment,
dulled perception.
Paul, before his conversion,
had this kind of blindness. He went around with great
zeal doing just the wrong thing, spewing out anger and
persecuting Christians. Then, after his vision on the
road to Damascus, he literally lost his sight. He was
blind until he received a blessing and the scales fell
from his eyes.
Then there was the man, blind
from birth, whom the Lord healed on the Sabbath. Of course
there was a ruckus and the Pharisees called the man before
them, wanting to know how he had received his sight. They
said, The man who has done this “is not of God because
he keepeth not the Sabbath day.” Healing was not a Sabbath
day activity to their thinking. The healed man answered,
“Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing
I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see” (John 9:
15, 25).
Is there anything greater
than those moments in our own lives where the scales fall
from our eyes, when we can say, “whereas I was blind,
now I see”?
Alma says the Spirit “enlightens
our understandings” and “expands our minds” (Alma 32:28,34).
Conversely, you can feel it sometimes when you wander
along, dulled and shrunken, blind and blunted in your
mind and heart.
From Belief to Enlightenment
King Benjamin said, “Believe
in God; believe that he is, believe that he has all wisdom,
and all power, both in heaven and in earth. Believe that
man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord
can comprehend.” (Mosiah 4:9)
He comprehends the answers
to every question we have. It isn’t his will that we
travel in the dark. He knows how to spring us from our
limitations and lift the road blocks. Don’t you wonder:
How can I love effectively and open my heart to bless
those whose lives touch mine? How do I choose between
all the possibilities and make the best use of my life?
How do I find sustenance for the dry times? What is the
song I came to sing? How can I overcome the things that
hurt? Who am I? And dear Lord, who art thou?
The Lord offers us his solutions
to all of our questions and he tells us, “I am more intelligent
than they all” (Abr. 3:19). There is not a problem we
can pose him or a challenge so perplexing that he does
not already have the answer. How can some of that light
be shed into our own minds?
The scriptures reveal a pattern
for receiving enlightenment — and it is not one we usually
talk about: Serious reflection precedes revelation.
Lehi tells his sons about
his vision of the tree of life and they have vastly different
reactions. Laman and Lemuel went into a tent and fought
about its meaning, but Nephi turned his mind to serious
reflection. His mind became a fertile field in which
the Lord could plough. He says, “As I sat pondering in
mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord,
yea, into an exceedingly high mountain, which I never
had before seen, and upon which I never had before set
my foot” (1 Nephi 11:1).
Laman and Lemuel’s debate
in the tent did not lead to revelation. Nephi’s pondering
opened the door to an expansive revelation that has blessed
us all. Serious reflection was Nephi’s way of being for
he tells us later, “My heart pondereth continually upon
the things which I have seen and heard” (2 Nephi 4:16).
Serious Reflection
In October of 1918, Joseph
F. Smith received a glorious vision of Christ coming to
the host of the dead that is now Section 138 of the Doctrine
and Covenants. In this vision he saw the joy and gladness
of the innumerable company of spirits who had been faithful
in the testimony of Jesus Christ. What opened his eyes
to receive this powerful experience? He said, “I sat
in my room pondering over the scriptures” and again “As
I pondered over these things which are written, the eyes
of my understanding were opened (D&C 138: 1,11).
Joseph Smith tells us that
before he received his First Vision of the Father and
the Son, his “mind was called up to serious reflection”
(JS History 1: 8). What is serious reflection? It is
focused and concentrated thought, like sunlight though
a magnifying glass that will burn a hole in paper.
It is not superficial. It
does not flit around from one distraction to another.
It does not leap off course or waver like the waves of
the sea.
We receive further insight
on this from Oliver Cowdery’s description of Joseph the
night that Moroni first visited him. Oliver writes, “On
the evening of the 21st of September, 1823,
previous to retiring to rest, our brother’s mind was unusually
wrought up on the subject which had so long agitated his
mind — his heart was drawn out in fervent prayer, and
his whole soul was so lost to every thing of a temporal
nature, that the earth to him had lost its charms, and
all he desired was to be prepared in heart to commune
with some kind messenger who could communicate to him
the desired information of his acceptance with God.
“At length the family retired,
and he as usually, bent his way, though in silence, where
others might have rested their weary frames ‘locked fast
in sleep’s embrace,’ but repose had fled, and accustomed
slumber had spread her refreshing hand over others beside
him — he continued still to pray — his heart, though once
hard and obdurate, was softened and that mind which had
often flitted like the ‘wild bird of passage,’ had settled
upon a determined basis not to be decoyed or driven from
its purpose.”
I love that image of our
thoughts as a “wild bird of passage.” How often they
are! And how we don’t want them to be that way.
When I think of a wild bird
of passage, I remember the day that a bird flew into our
office through an open window. It could not find its
way out, and in its panic it flew from one side of the
room to the other in useless flutterings. We watched
it swoop from corner to corner, dashing about and making
no progress. That is in great contrast to Joseph’s determined
prayer that would not be decoyed or driven from its purpose.
Distractions Keep Us from
Revelation
Prayer and spirituality demand
mental discipline and focus. Is it any wonder that this
kind of prayer does not lead to revelation: “Dear Heavenly
Father, Thank thee for… did I thaw the meat for dinner?
Bless us to… I hope this won’t take long. I have so much
to do. And please bless… Is the party Friday or Saturday
night?”
Distractions are the enemy
of pondering and serious reflection. It doesn’t always
take a major sin to leave us blind. Enough little things
that turn our heads will do. C.S. Lewis captures this
idea in his book The Screwtape Letters. The premise
is that these are a series of letters from a Screwtape,
a senior devil to a junior devil teaching him the best
way to tempt the mortal to whom he is assigned.
Screwtape explains, “I once
had a patient, a sound atheist who used to read in the
British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train
of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way.”
In other words, this sound atheist considered for a moment
that there might be a God. He had a moment of serious
reflection about the divine and eternal.
Screwtape says, “Before I
knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning
to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt
a defense by argument I should have been undone. But
I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part
of the man which I had best under my control and suggested
that it was just about time he had some lunch.” [God]
presumably made the counter-suggestion… that this was
more important than lunch. At least I think that must
have been His line for when I said, “Quite. In fact much
too important to tackle at the end of a morning,’ the
patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I
had added ‘Much better come back after lunch and go into
it with a fresh mind, he was already half way to the door.”
Of course, Screwtape reported with satisfaction, the distraction
worked, and by the time the man was out the door and had
seen a No. 73 bus and a newsboy, he was back to what he
called “reality” and the thought of God never returned
to his mind. (The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics.
Harper, San Francisco, p. 128.)
Why tempt us with dark deeds,
when our heads can be so easily turned from eternal things
by a distraction?
Of Deep Import
Not only are our lives riddled
with distractions, too often we think the distractions
are what life is all about. We become caught in the thick
of thin things. In fact, should we have a moment of quiet,
too often we actively seek to fill it with more distractions.
We turn on radios in cars, work to the background of the
television’s blare. We stay on the shore playing with
plastic beach toys instead of wading into the deep water
where so much waits to be discovered.
Joseph Smith said, “Deep
water is what I am wont to swim in” and he also said,
“The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience,
and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only
find them out. Thy mind, O man! If thou wilt lead a soul
unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens,
and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss and
the broad expanse of eternity — thou must commune with
God.” (TPHS, p. 137). He said this in the context of
saying that in too many of our classes and gatherings
we have been light-minded, “vain and trifling,” and un-concentrated
in our direction.
We cannot understand the
answers to questions we have not asked. God cannot share
his deep knowledge with those who are not interested in
the elementary curriculum. In the journey to understand
the vast expanse that God would teach us about our own
lives and the universe beyond, vista leads to another
vista. Impressions come to minds open to be taught, not
those already rattling with trifles.
But, we want to cry out:
“My life is fragmented and torn to pieces by obligations
and duties, all the nits and gnats of mortality. I cannot
help it. It’s the condition and jangle of the modern
world.” I say, we must help it. We are the people of
God. He has things to tell us that are only accessible
to a mind that can often be given to serious reflection.
We did not come here to forget
our divine destiny under a clutter of random thoughts.
Buzzing Flies a Blessing
Once as a young mother I
needed an answer to prayer. I got a babysitter, took
my scriptures and journal and hiked a trail to the top
of a mountain where I overlooked a wondrous vista. I
sat down, opened my scriptures and journal, and began
to pray. Suddenly I heard a buzzing noise, lots of buzzing
noises. Flies were everywhere, circling my head, landing
on the pages of my scriptures, obliterating my reading.
I tried to continue, but it was hard. The flies buzzed
and dive bombed around me and in great frustration I gathered
up my things and went home, thinking I had not received
an answer. In reality, I received an answer that has
stayed with me my whole life. I realized that the flies
were a symbol. They were like the distractions that too
often kept me from a spiritual focus when I needed it
so badly. Just as I would have liked to read verse 1,
a fly landed in the middle of the second sentence. Verse
two had two flies. I would love to ponder, to focus on
the deep things of the spirit, but distractions kept me
from it. I was like Martha, “careful and troubled about
many things” but spiritual focus was the better part,
which too often daily life allowed little time for.
It does not surprise us that
to learn a musical instrument to perfection requires the
utmost concentration and thought. Why then do we suppose
that having the mysteries of God unfolded to us would
somehow require little mental energy?
We must decide if we will
travel this mortal journey tangled in distractions or
find times on a daily basis for the serious reflection
and pondering that leads to revelation, whether we will
travel in dark barges or have them lit by stones touched
by the finger of God. These times are so dangerous we
simply cannot afford to travel blindly.
A Path to Personal Revelation
What kind of pondering leads
to revelation and answered prayers, to throwing open doors
of understanding in our minds?
Nephi helps us here. He
gives us clues as to what he was thinking just before
he was caught up to that high mountain.
First, he says, “I Nephi,
was desirous also that I might see, and hear, and know
of these things by the power of the Holy Ghost” (1 Nephi
10: 17). We ponder because we have a real question or
challenge. We ponder because we really want to know
the truth about something. We want to know things as
they really were, really are and really will be (see Jacob
4:13). Desire burns in us for heavenly knowledge.
Abraham left the residence
of his fathers in Ur because he said, “finding there was
greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought
for the blessings of the fathers… desiring also to be
one who possessed great knowledge and to be a greater
follower of righteousness” (Abraham 1:2)
There’s that desire word
again. For Abraham it flung open the door to a new dispensation
of gospel light.
Listen to the pitch of desire
that led Lucy Mack Smith to ponder and seek for the true
religion. She said that in the anxiety of her soul to
find “that religion that would enable me to serve [God]
right, I went from place to place to seek information
or find, if possible, some congenial spirit who might
enter into my feelings and sympathize with me.
“At last I heard that one
noted for his piety would preach the ensuing Sabbath in
the Presbyterian Church. Thither I went in expectation
of obtaining that which alone could satisfy my soul —
the bread of eternal life. When the minister commenced,
I fixed my mind with breathless attention upon the spirit
and matter of the discourse, but all was emptiness, vanity,
vexation of spirit, and fell upon my heart like [a] chill,
untimely blast… It did not fill the aching void within
nor satisfy the craving hunger of my soul. I was almost
in total despair, and with a grieved and troubled spirit
I returned home, saying in my heart, there is not on earth
the religion which I seek. I must again turn to my Bible,
take Jesus and his disciples for an example. I will try
to obtain from God that which man cannot give nor take
away. I will settle myself down to this. I will hear
all that can be said, read all that is written, but particularly
the word of God shall be my guide to life and salvation,
which I will endeavor to obtain if it is to be had by
diligence in prayer.” (The Revised and Enhanced History
of Joseph Smith by His Mother, edited by Scot Facer
Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor, p. 49).
Lucy’s words are an expression
of serious reflection. Her desire is expressed with great
emotion “the aching void” and the craving void of my soul.
A Gradual Transformation
of Our Thinking
Do you think it was wanting
too much that Nephi desired to see and hear the vision
that his father Lehi had had? Do you think it was self-important
for Abraham to leave home for his intense desires for
righteousness? Was Lucy’s desire just too much?
No. They were all answered
with profound revelation and blessings on their heads.
Their desires for heavenly knowledge were linked to the
unwavering sense that God was able to guide them to answers.
Too often we are not creatures of too many desires, but
shallow, vapid souls wanting too little, refusing to think
too deeply.
We live in a universe as
Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “drenched in divine design,”
where wonder is added to wonder. God and his Son Jesus
Christ are willing to share the secrets of the universe
if we are only willing to receive their gifts (and “not
be offended at their generosity”).
Pondering the scriptures
leads to revelation. Joseph Smith had been pondering James
1:5 when he went to the Sacred Grove and John 5:29 when
he received section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Joseph F. Smith had been pondering a scripture from Peter
when he received his vision of the spirit world.
Pondering deep things leads
us closer to God. The Lord has told us, “For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”
(Isaiah 55:9). Yet, he is willing and wanting our thoughts
to gradually be transformed to be like his thoughts, and
our ways his ways.
All thought is not of equal
significance. There is no democracy of facts. As Elder
Maxwell said, “As, more and more, we brush against truth,
we sense that it has a hierarchy of importance. Some truths
are salvationally significant and others are not.”
What can we ponder? We can
ponder what the scriptures mean. We can ponder what the
real questions are we need to pray about. Sometimes before
I pray, I write my questions down in a notebook, so I
don’t forget them. Too often something urgent and obvious
blinds us to the real issue at hand. What is it that
I need to see that I’m not seeing?
We can ponder how the Lord
sees our challenges and how He would solve them.
We can ponder the tender
mercies of the Lord in our lives and what it teaches us
about his attributes.
Pondering leads us to truths
beyond what the “natural man or woman” can find, stability
when the world around is reeling, light when we have been
traveling blindly. A world of invitation awaits. So many
things about our lives, we cannot choose, but we can decide
where our minds travel.
Surrounded by Enemies
and Yet…
One of my favorite passages
is a record of Lucy Mack Smith’s night when her head lay
upon a chest that held the manuscript of the Book of Mormon
while it was being printed in Palmyra. Guards were posted
around her home, because enemies of the new Church hoped
to steal the manuscript and burn it. That night she could
not sleep for pondering. As she said “I fell into a train
of reflections which occupied my mind until the day appeared.
I called up to my recollection,” she said, “the past history
of my life, and scene after scene seemed to rise in succession
before me.” During that night she thought of her family,
of her intense search to find the truth of salvation.
She remembered her confidence that God would raise up
someone who would bring the truth to “those who desired
to do his will at the expense of all things. She remembered
with “infinite delight” the truths that Joseph had taught
her.
She said, “My soul swelled
with a joy that could scarcely be heightened, except by
the reflection that the record which had cost so much
labor, suffering, and anxiety was now, in reality, lying
beneath my own head—that this identical work had not only
been the object which we as a family had pursued so eagerly,
but that the prophets of ancient days, angels, and even
the great God had had his eye upon it. ‘And,’ said I to
myself, ‘shall I fear what man can do? Will not the angels
watch over the precious relic of the worthy dead and the
hope of the living? And am I indeed the mother of a prophet
of the God of heaven, the honored instrument in performing
so great a work?’ I felt that I was in the purview of
angels, and my heart bounded at the thought of the great
condescension of the Almighty.
“Thus I spent the night surrounded
by enemies and yet in an ecstasy of happiness. Truly
I can say that my soul did magnify and my spirit rejoiced
in God, my Savior. (Proctor, Ibid. pp. 210-211).
May our ponderings give us
light in our journeys, perspective for the moment, and
enlightenment in both big things and things that are big
to us.
One night years ago, when
I had been pondering and praying about how to help my
daughter, I was given just the right thing to say at the
right moment. It was a big thing to me.
