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Searching the Scriptures — A Personal
Journey
By Scot Facer Proctor
I had such a wonderful experience yesterday
morning in my personal scripture study I wanted to not only share
it with you, but walk you through the process so that it might be
of some benefit. This is a very personal article. Stay with me.
Daily Readings No Matter What
I read the scriptures each and every
day. I never miss. I haven’t missed since I committed to daily
scripture study on August 28, 1972. I’ve instructed my family that
if I’m ever in a coma or have a long surgery where I’m out of it
that they are to read the scriptures to me so I don’t miss.
I used to get up on my soapbox every
semester in front of my institute students and encourage them to
take the challenge: “The very best day to start reading the scriptures
every day, never miss, was probably twenty years ago (I have mainly
taught adults), but the second best day to start is today, yes,
this very date, Friday, February 10, 2006 (or whatever date it was).
You can always look back and say, ‘Yep, I committed to reading the
scriptures every day, never miss, on Friday, February 10, 2006.
And I have never missed since that day — not once.’” I can’t tell
you how many students I have come to me years and years after that
lesson and say, “Brother Proctor, I want you to know that I’ve never
missed reading the scriptures every day since October 27, 1994.
I’m so glad I committed.” That is so gratifying.
Letter of the Law
I have to admit, there are some days,
when, because of Meridian’s responsibilities (you know, doing Meridian
is like buying a dairy farm in Wisconsin — every morning the cows
are bellowing — and they have to be milked) my daily read in the
scriptures ends up being between 11:54 PM and 12:07 AM. I don’t
particularly like those kind of readings because I know that I’m
missing something very great. At that point I am only living the
letter of the law.
Deeper Study
Yesterday was the Patriarch Hyrum Smith’s
birthday — February 9, 1800. I always think about him just like
I think about the Prophet Joseph’s significant dates and a pile
of other Church History dates. These things are just resident in
my mind. I think dates are significant. I always love to reread
Section 76 on February 16 each year, just to capture some of the
context of that day when the great vision of the three degrees of
glory was received. My scripture reading is often very rich on
the Patriarch Hyrum Smith’s birthday, just because… well, just because.
Let me walk you through yesterday morning’s
study time. I’ll make it personal and detailed so you can see the
process I went through. I think it will bless you.
5:00 AM
The first alarm had gone off on my
watch. I have three. I try to get up immediately so I don’t awaken
Maurine before she has to get up. I’m the designated parent to
awaken Mariah each morning to get ready for seminary. I am a morning
person.
5:05 AM
I made it to Mariah’s room by the second
alarm. Awakening Mariah is always a chore. She is a dreamer and
she almost always begs me to let her finish this really good part
of the dream she’s in. I have to talk her through the motions of
getting out of bed. “Don’t forget to make your bed right as you
get out of it,” I reminded her.
5:10 AM
The third alarm went off. Mariah was
ready to get out of bed (and I trusted that she would not leap back
into her dream). I knew Maurine had to be up at 5:45 to leave by
6:30 for a conference in the District. I sneaked back into our
room to get my scriptures from my night stand and then I headed
down to the laundry room to put on my gym clothes. I put them in
the dryer the night before at 11:20 just before I went to bed.
I put my gym clothes on because on the weeks that I don’t drive
the seminary car pool, I drive right from the church to the gym
to get in my workout and get back to the house in time to launch
the new edition of Meridian. (We certainly don’t do Meridian alone
— without an able and talented staff we would be sunk). It was
a cold 26 degrees Fahrenheit with a slight wind. I was glad to
be able to work out inside.
5:15 AM
I sat down in the quiet of the kitchen
eating area and spread my scriptures out on the kitchen table.
I could hear the shower going upstairs, so I knew that Mariah was
going to be okay. I opened my Triple Combination back up to 2 Nephi
Chapter 8 — the chapter I had attempted to read late the night before,
but only got through 12 or 15 verses before the clock struck twelve
and I could not concentrate. I try to read something morning and
night. I said a prayer as I began, essentially something like this:
“Dear Heavenly Father, I thank Thee that I have this time to read
Thy words. Help me to understand them and to feel the message Thou
wouldst intend for me to have today. In the name of Thy Son, Jesus
Christ, Amen.” I was ready to begin.
I knew this chapter was Isaiah material.
I really wanted to understand it. “Hearken unto me, ye that follow
after righteousness. Look unto the rock from whence ye are hewn,
and to the hole of the pit from whence ye are digged.” (2 Nephi
8: 1) I knew from past readings this was all about our ties to
Abraham and Sarah. I had just taught a lesson last Sunday in High
Priests on the Covenant of Abraham. I have made this reading
of the Book of Mormon specifically focused on one of the two-fold
purposes of the book from the title page itself: “Which is to show
unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord
hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants
of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever…” I’m searching
for all the references to the covenants of the Father to His children.
I thought, “Ah, another chapter about the covenants of the Father.
This is great.”
“Look unto Abraham, your father, and
unto Sarah, she that bare you; for I called him alone, and blessed
him.” (verse 2) I was fully attentive to what was going on now
and I started feeling the Spirit in my heart as I read this verse.
“These are my true parents,” I pondered. “And this record has been
written for their posterity.”
“For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he
will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness
like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.” (verse 3).
“You know,” I thought, “I have always felt like this would be one
of the greatest miracles and greatest gifts of the Lord. I know
that waste places can be a people without knowledge of the true
Messiah — but I also know about the great wilderness of Judea and
the Wadi al Arabah where the Dead Sea is the lowest place on the
earth. The healing of that land and that sea will be one of the
great miracles of the last days. And to become like Eden — wow.”
Now I lost all track of time. The clock on the wall behind me has
a small pendulum that swings. I could not hear it now.
I enjoyed each verse. I began to feast
upon the words. “Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the
people in whose heart I have written my law…” (verse 7). I stopped
and meditated about having the law of the Lord written upon my heart.
I wanted to be that kind of person. I wanted to be someone the
Lord can absolute count on. Is His law written on my heart?
“But my righteousness shall be forever,
and my salvation from generation to generation. Awake, awake!
Put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days”
(verses 8, 9). “Remember, this is talking about the covenants of
the Father to Abraham and to his posterity,” I meditated. This
sounds familiar to me.”
“I am he; yea, I am he that comforteth
you” (verse 12). I continued to ponder: “This is the voice of
the great Jehovah. This is Jesus Christ. This is the true Messiah,
the Holy One of Israel. This is the Anointed One. This is the
one that gives me comfort. I like the phrase ‘I am he.’”
By now I was completely immersed in
these verses. I was feeling the Spirit in my heart and ideas were
flowing to my mind (see D&C 8: 2, 3).
I carefully studied each verse, word
by word. I thought about “the captive exile being loosed.” I thought
about Job. I thought about the Lord of Hosts whose “waves roared.”
I thought of Nephi’s constant knowledge that he and his family were
like the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. I thought
about the two witnesses in the last days who will testify in Jerusalem
(see verses 17-20).
I came to verse 22: “Thus saith thy
Lord, the Lord and thy God pleadeth the cause of his people…” I
thought how powerful that was that Christ was the one pleading our
cause as a people; that He was our advocate with the Father. It
made me so happy to think of Jesus being our advocate. I wanted
to read all the verses specifically in the Doctrine and Covenants
that referred to Christ as our advocate. The footnote in verse
22 didn’t lead me to any of those cross references. I went to the
index in my Triple Combination. I looked up the word advocate.
This said: (see Jesus Christ — Advocate). I turned to page 176
of the index. There were all the references I had felt to look
up in the Doctrine and Covenants. I went through them one by one.
“Lift up your hearts and be glad, for
I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father; and it
is his good will to give you the kingdom.” (D&C 29: 5) Maurine
and I had memorized that verse 15 years ago. I thought about the
1839 mission of the Twelve to the British Isles and how Joseph had
seen the Twelve in vision and saw Christ standing there just above
them and they could not see Him. I pondered about the statement
“it is his good will to give you the kingdom.” It made me so happy
that the Father is so kind and so generous. I went to the next
reference.
“And Ziba Peterson also shall go with
them; and I myself will go with them and be in their midst; and
I am their advocate with the Father, and nothing shall prevail against
them” (D&C 32: 3). I knew this mission well from Fayette, New
York to Western Missouri. I studied it carefully as we were blessed
to do the Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, the Revised and Enhanced
Edition. I thought about Parley and Ziba and Peter Whitmer,
Jr. and Oliver Cowdery and later Frederick Granger Williams on that
brutal mission in the dead of winter in 1830 and 1831. I thought
about the Savior being with them. I pondered about the statement
“…and nothing shall prevail against them.” I was so moved by the
kindness of the Lord. I went to the next reference.
“Listen to him who is the advocate
with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him —Saying:
Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in
whom thou was well pleased…” (D&C 45: 3, 4) I stopped briefly.
My heart was so full I felt I would burst. I began to cry. I could
not imagine anything sweeter than knowing that the Savior was pleading
my cause before the Father. I wanted to look up the verses where
the Father’s voice says “in whom I am well pleased.” He didn’t
say it in the Sacred Grove (see JS-H 1: 17) at least it was not
in the 1838 account. It was at the River Jordan right after the
baptism.
I looked up Matthew chapter 3. Sure
enough — there was one of them. “This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased (and the Joseph Smith Translation adds “Hear ye
him”)” (see Matthew 3: 17). I knew the Father had spoken at the
Mount of Transfiguration. I had it well marked: “This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (see Matthew 17: 5).
I thought “Oh, and He spoke when the
Savior visited the Nephites.” I quickly turned there: “Behold
my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified
my name — hear ye him” (see 3 Nephi 11: 7). I was thinking about
how much the Father loved His Son. I just felt so happy. I now
went back to finish up the Section 45 reference.
“Behold the blood of thy Son which
was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be
glorified; Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe
on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life”
(D&C 45: 4, 5). I was writing all these references down with
my very fine Rapidograph pen sideways in the margin of my scriptures
back there by 2 Nephi 8: 22. The section 45 words reminded me of
the language in the great intercessory prayer. I turned to John
chapter 17. My heart was still burning and I was being blessed.
I read the entire prayer of Jesus Christ.
I’ve always loved that prayer and have often felt the effects of
that very prayer in my own life. It made me so happy to read it
again. I got to verse 17: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy
word is truth.” I thought, “I need to remember that verse. 17:17
— I can remember that. Reading the scriptures on a daily basis
is part of the sanctification process.”
I turned back to the last couple of
references in the Doctrine and Covenants. “Behold, and hearken,
O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ,
your advocate, who knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor
them who are tempted” (D&C 62: 1). I was moved by the word
succor. I had looked up the word before in the Greek but
couldn’t remember the exact meaning now.
I went and got my Strong’s Exhaustive
Concordance of the Bible (a must for someone studying the scriptures
who doesn’t know the ancient languages of Greek, Hebrew or Chaldee).
I looked up succor. It was word number 997 in the Greek.
I went to the index. The transliteration is boetheo (bo ay theh’
o). I went right to my Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the
New Testament. The first line of the definition leaped out
at me: to run to the cry (of those in danger). I welled
up with tears again. This great God I worship knows how to succor
those who stand in need. I thought about how many times I had cried
unto him and He had “run to my cry.” I was filled with joy and
gratitude. This feeling was so sweet.
Now the kitchen table was covered with
my opened books — my Triple, my Bible, Strongs, Thayers and Gesenius’
(the Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament). My colored pencils
were spread all over. My pen cap was off to the right.
I had two more references. “I am the
first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I
am your advocate with the Father” (D&C 110: 4). I thought about
the Kirtland Temple and the great manifestations there on that April
3, 1836. I thought of Joseph and Oliver gazing into the face of
the Savior — the Advocate with the Father.
“I am the same which have taken the
Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom…” I stopped. We were just talking
to our girls about this last Sunday morning in our Old Testament
family study time. “…and verily, I say, even as many as have believed
in my name, for I am Christ, and in mine own name, by the virtue
of the blood which I have spilt, have I pleaded before the Father
for them” (D&C 38: 4). Here is this same image again, the Savior
pleading our case before the Father.
5:53 AM
At this moment, Mariah came into the
kitchen. “Dad, I’m ready to go.” She startled me. I was in a completely
different world. “What time is it?” “Seven ‘til.” “Oh my goodness,
I forgot to get Mom up. I’ll be right back.” I left everything
in a heap and ran up the stairs. The light was on in our room and
fortunately Maurine was awake. “Good morning, dear. I’ve just
had the best scripture reading time. Did you realize the word succor
means ‘to run to the cry?’ I am so grateful that we worship a God
who knows how to succor us. I loved my scripture reading so much
this morning.” “Will you share it all with me tonight?” “I will.
In fact, I think I better write about it. I’ve got to take Mariah
to seminary. I love you.”
“Dad, I want you to know I was ready
on time this morning and you are the one making us late,” Mariah
said to me.
“You’re right, dear. I take full responsibility,
but now I’m ready for the day. Let’s go.”
5:58 AM
We're out the door and off to seminary (we said
our prayers on the way in the car).
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