Last Sunday I taught the gospel principles class in my ward and while it went well, it also went WAY faster than I had planned, we were at the end of what I had prepared and we had about 15 minutes left . . . so with no lesson material left I decided to make a list on the board of different commandments that Christ has given to us and that, by following them, will help us draw closer to him. I figured that would take at least 5 minutes and then they would have a visual for my invitation. We had a lot of different things written on the board, i.e. forgive, repent, love and serve one another, keep the Sabbath day holy, be still, etc. My invitation was to pick one to work on that week and see how their relationship with Christ grows as they did so.
As I was looking at the list, one of them (Be still) really caught my eye. The point of my lesson was to find ways to strengthen our personal relationships with Christ. My goal from the lesson was to take more time to be still. I wanted to disconnect more from the worldly noise and tune more into the spiritual noise so I would be more available to receive promptings from the Holy Ghost. I think it has literally been the hardest week for me to do that. I didn't do very well at all, in fact, I went on a Netflix and YouTube spree. While on my endless YouTube video rabbit hole I found this video.
*** Warning, there is some swearing***
In the video, in case you didn't want to watch it :) He talks about how he is always connected to something from the moment he wakes up until he goes to bed and then he goes on to talk about how rewarding it is when you disconnect from all of the entertainment and noise that can come from everywhere and just think.
When I watched this I realized that that day I had done almost nothing but be plugged in to the noise of the world. I was very similar to this guy. I got up and was listening to an audio book, Then I walked to class with my headphones tuned into my favorite Pandora station. I went to class and then listened to Pandora some more while I did homework then repeated until my classes were done, then I walked home to the sound of my Pandora station. When I got home I got on Facebook, then watched some episodes on Netflix then got on YouTube... I had just spent my whole day drowning every other voice out with meaningless entertainment. It was a wake-up call to me that I needed to stop and let my brain think. I needed to take time to be still. This small rebuke was a tender mercy to me. It helped me remember the goals I had set earlier in the week and to do better for the rest of the week.
I think it is amazing how God really is involved in our lives and wants to help us achieve our goals and will send us reminders of those goals when we are not on track to achieve them. This week my goal is to take time, and more than just a couple of minutes, to be still every day during the week so I can enjoy the company of my own mind more. I think I will find it to be rewarding in many ways.
Also, another tender mercy, tonight was, for the first time in almost 2 years, seeing this cute girl again! Sister Richards (now Betsy) stopped in Rexburg for a few hours and I got to hang out with her :) So fun!
