Zion: The Pure in Heart. With that thought a feeling began to grow in me. Was I pure? Did that mean perfect? No, it did not mean perfect, but it did mean not being worldly. Was I good? Did I believe in my goodness? Could I stand alone on my goodness? Could I look at the Father of all lies and by my goodness have fear removed from me and hope and joy be the look in my eye? I was good. We are good. We need to use the tools of the Gospel to take the punch from the lies of the adversary.
One of the main lies that he tells us is that his power is too great. We are too weak. We are told that the sins we have committed we can’t really overcome. He convinces us that we are too lost and we don’t have the power to overcome. To a degree that is true. We are powerless against the wiles and forces of the adversary, alone. I see this repeatedly in peoples’ lives. They think to themselves, “ I will do it this time. I am really going to be good. I am not going to fall in that trap again.” They do fall, again and again and so they believe they cannot do it. They can’t, alone.
The Father can!
That wonderful and great Father in Heaven can!
The Father of all of our fathers, and mothers can!
Our Father who knows us well and loves us dearly can!
He can take a deep weakness and turn it into one of our greatest strengths!
O Happy Day!
I can see that I am better than I used to be, so I know it works. For example, when I was young I had a quick temper. I used to excuse it with the statement that I was Scotch-Irish, and it was just built into me. If I felt right within my attitude, I felt I had the right to use my temper, or should I say, abuse with my temper.
It slowly dawned on me, this was damaging to those around me, and my sense of rightness was not righteous indignation. I think righteous indignation may happen only a few times in our life. First, we have to be righteous to have righteous indignation. In most cases of our being upset, it is more contention than righteous indignation!
I began to ask Heavenly Father to take this temper away from me. I found that I could express my feelings of frustration to him. I could unload my anger in prayer and share with him how I felt. Often, I saw my anger through his eyes, and my prayer ended up in repentant tears. Somehow my temper began to decrease in my home.
As my anger became more controlled, my childrens’ anger became more controlled. We can understand that principle intellectually, but to put it into action is quite another thing. It takes a lot of effort. Why, if my Father who is in the Heavens had a temper like mine, what a disaster we would have in the world! The world itself is infected with anger. I think I will make mine one temper less.
The Power of the Fast!
One of the great tools to making these types of changes in our personal life is the fast. How I love the fast. I know early in the morning that as I kneel to pray, dedicating this day to the Father and the desire to work on my weaknesses, that something will happen that day. I will see a little more clearly. I will do more repenting.
Fasting seems to lessen the barriers between us and the gentle guidance of our Father. I was given glimpses of what I needed to change and why. So during these sessions of fasting and prayers, I became more humble, and repentant feelings flooded into my mind. I could see the effects of that ill temper and short, fast words that could be cutting. The more I saw clearly, the sicker I got until I finally would beg the Lord, to help me. This problem is bigger than I am, and I am lost without your help. Even though the process of change was sometimes painful, I never felt alone, abandoned or even disliked by the Father. Often I felt understanding. This earth life is tough and learning to control our bodies and minds are tough as well!
At this point it occurred to me that this would take a real fight on my part. So I asked for help in starting the fight against this weakness. I asked that I could see with clear eyes what was happening, and in the next few weeks, that is exactly what happened. I asked and I saw, and what I saw made me ill. How often I was the tool of the adversary and had not even seen it coming before it had hit, the help I had been to the adversary, and how the situation was done before I had a chance to block it.
Through this process, I was directed by the Spirit to go to the scriptures. Roughly, there are about 38 verses that talk about contention and the damage of contention. These were the verses with just the word contention in them. I also read how anger is an emotion that is a part of the passion of life, and that even our Father was a God of passion.
These passions were only used against unrighteousness and if so prompted by the Spirit. I continued to study, and could see that the prime tool of Satan was anger and contention. It is not the same as righteous indignation! He scatters it throughout our homes, our ward leadership meetings, and sometimes even in our Sunday meetings; it governs much of our conversations; it has become a honed and skilled tool that we had adapted for our own worldly use.
So, back to the power of the fast. In one of my prayers I begged to know how to stop it before it got past me. I begged for protection and advice. I received three simple steps: The first was to be QUIET! Zip the lip! Keep my mouth shut! If I didn’t open my mouth, the words could not come out. The second step was to back out of the situation until I was calm. Even if I couldn’t stop the others around me in the situation, I could stop myself. The third was to take the anger to my Father in Heaven.
After a period of time, and with the Father’s help I began to have control over my passions and feelings and keep the adversary powerless in that area. He no longer had such casual dominion over my home or whatever involvements I was in. It was not easy. Sometimes I didn’t want to be quiet. I wanted to speak my peace. I wanted to get into the fray and to get my opinion out there. What I wanted was my way. Pure and simple!
Now I am sure that most of you have nicer weaknesses and I wish I did, but I have a firm respect for the power of our weaknesses over our lives, and how those weaknesses give fear power to make us doubt. We are very casual about our weaknesses. I am very tolerant of my weaknesses; it is yours that I have a problem with! We hold onto our weaknesses with vigor. As a counselor, I know that there is much to a person and their needs; but our needs can be destructive and those destructive needs are what we have to run to our Heavenly Father with and place them in his lap.
Talk by R. A. Hess @ Woman’s Conference
Riverside Stake, Big Bear Lake, California
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