Prayer

I believe that prayer is a gift to us from Heavenly Father. He knows all, sees all and can do all, so why does He ask that we pray? Sometimes it requires us to be humble as we kneel down in prayer and ask sensere forgiveness. The opportunity to humble ourselves is a gift. Sometimes when we need an answer to something, we know that we must study it out in our minds before prayer right? So the studying part is a gift to us, when we study we learn and grow..... Heavenly Father knows this and allows us to have the opportunity to learn for ourselves. A gift.
Prayer makes us feel closer to Him, we can draw on His spirit and feel His power through prayer.
We can feel peace and hope through our prayers of gratitude. When we kneel and count our blessings out loud to God in prayer we are again being given a gift because that very act, counting our blessings, brings power.
Everything that we are being asked to do by God is never really for God- It always ends up blessing us.
Never stop praying, never. Even i f you get on your knees and let Him know that you are not sure what to say but youre there, just stay there until you know what to say. Never not pray.

Prayer is the fastes way I know to build a personal relationship with Heavenly Father. He really does listen, He really does care and He really will help.

Nephi's Psalm

2 Nephi ch.4 has been described as Nephi psalm. His sacred song if you will. This chapter has given me much comfort over the years.

Read these verses carefully and as you identify with them in your own personal way you too will find a deep connection to Nephi's words.

I love vrs 28 where he says he rejoices and gives place no more to the enemy of my soul. The enemy is Satan obviously and nephi in essence casts him out. We too can do this, we can cast out the enemy of our souls that we might find room to rejoice and praise our Savior Jesus Christ.

He also talks about trust- McKenna, your trust in Heavenly Father is everything. When you truly trust  Him you will find the fears will dissipate and you will be filled with peace.

Going backwards

1 Nephi 18:8-15

This part of their journey always fascinated me. Here nephi has basically built the boat himself that is taking all of the family across the sea, he is driving the ship which is not easy, while his brothers and family are partying like wild animals and as he says, being rude.
Nephi has experienced so many visions and confirmations up until this point to give him solid witness that he was doing the lords will, yet his brothers were driving the spirit away and Nephi knew that they would not make it with out the spirit guiding them.
So he try's to tell them to stop and that he's afraid God will stop guiding their path across the sea!

Of course Lamen and Lemual are pissed and this time the tie up Nephi really good- to where his wrists are bleeding and he's so weak.  They leave him tied up for a long time and the part that I always thought interesting is where it says in vrs 13... that they were driven back three days journey because of what lamen and lemual did. 3 DAYS!! Can you imagine being on a boat in the middle of the ocean, sea sick and miserable and you just lost 3 days worth of travel?!!

I took away from this story the principle that when we are not obedient to the Lords commandments and even go as far as rebelling them.... we dont just hit a pause button and say, " oh Ill just wander off the path for a min and then jump right back on and keep going forward" No, we actually loose the progress we made. "We are driven backwards"

We dont want to loose the ground we have already won. We do not want to loose the faith we have already exercised.

Be strong and steadfast McKenna in the progress you have made these past few years. You have allowed the Lord to steer your ship and the Holy Ghost is guiding you along the way.

There will be storms along the way, for sure, but if you remain worthy to be guided by the "leahona" you will not be tossed backwards in your journey. The storm will actually be moving you forward as the heavy winds blow.

I know this to be true.

Amulek- do you really know him?

This guy is one of my favorite men in the scriptures. I absolutely fell in love with his conversion story and want to share my thoughts on this.

So Alma chapters 8-16 you need to study

I am constantly amazed at how this guy not only quickly believed and obeyed an angel of the Lord but quickly believed the words of Alma while he was letting Alma stay with him in his house. It clearly states that Amulec had a family... that he was very popular, very wealthy and very smart.
Yet he gives it all up to go and preach the gospel with Alma.

The way Amulec so quickly roots himself in the gospel is incredible! He is immediately persecuted with Alma in their ministers and yet he doesn't waiver. He witnesses innocent women and children being burned alive and knowing that he and Alma have the priesthood power to stoop it, he has faith that its the lord will not to envoke that power to save them. Yet Amuleck doesn't waiver in his faith after watching that horrific scene.

Why was he so solid so fast? What did he do to hold tight to his faith no matter what tragedy he witnesses or experiences?

He is my hero!

Jonah like you've never seen him

Ok, so when was the last time you read the book of Jonah? Probably seminary. Get out your Old Testament and open up to the book of Jonah.
Come on now
Just do it

Ok, I wanted to bring this story up because its one of my favorites.
I learned about something in the scriptures called a Chaism- it's basically when the elements of a story repeat themselves in reverse order.
Chaotic passages points to the center of the story. In this story the center is the Lord delivered salvation- first to Jonah then to Ninivah on the the same terms...repentance.

Ok, so here is the chaism of the story

1. The Lord commands Jonah to preach against the wicked Ninivites.
2. Jonah sins, not wanting ninivah to be saved
3. Jonah repents, lord saves Jonah
3. Ninivah repents, Lord saves Ninivah
2. Jonah sins not wanting Ninivah to be saved
3. The lord asks "should I not spare Ninivah?"

This story is quite fascinating when you really study it.
The point I wanted to share at this- even a prophet of God wanted to give up. I want to share an experience that i had with this book to better emphasize my point.

So i was feeling very beat up and hopeless. I was so upset at the fact that this person in my life was, in my opinion, not worthy to be saved or forgiven or spared.
I had had enough and felt like i wanted to just die. I quickly felt guilt over that thought and the thoughts of not wanting God to save this person for any reason whatsoever.
I dropped to my knees crying and seeking help from Heavenly Father. I felt that i just couldn't hear him so i opened up my scriptures in a desperate hope to find Hid counsel to me in there.

I turned to the book of Jonah. I started to read and I started to see this man, a prophet of God, so downtrodden and depressed- upset rather- that the Lord was asking him to call the people of ninivah to repentance. These people had been awful, barbaric even and he saw no point in the Lord forgiving them. He refused to call them to repentance. So he RAN!
A prophet of God ran! Lol
Then i noticed that he even took it further than just running away. When the men on the boat were about to drown in the storm and they were scared- jonah knew why the storm was about to overtake the ship- God was angry with him. But he wanted to just be thrown overboard! He wanted to die!
A prophet of the lord wanted to die rather than see these people repent and be forgiven. Oh my gosh I couldn't believe what i was reading.
I kept reading and remembered the question the Lords asks him in the end... should I not spare Ninivah?
Johan finally asks the Lord to spare him from the belly of the whale. Which the Lord does. But then why would the Lord not spare Ninivah? Wasn't Jonah sinning too by not obeying the command of God and then running away?!

I learned a couple things this night when reading the story again. First, that im not alone in my feelings. Second, that if i wanted to be spared then I had no right to judge, prevent or discourage others from being spared too.

No matter how you want to apply this to your situation right now, I just wanted you to know that youre never alone in how you might be feeling and that you will always find comfort in the scriptures.

Dont look back

This is an amazing talk and I hope you listen to all of it. I know you perhaps gain something different than I did but I know it will be inspiring!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obNlH5VZ_qg

Decisions

You will always be making decisions and might feel immense  pressure to  make the right decision. It It is extremely important to make the right decision. But know that when you are worthy of the holy ghost you will be worthy to get heavenly direction.

3 things to help make a decision:

Make a plan
Study and pray
Examine your motives

Making Righteous Decisions