Your Thoughts Have Power
Photo by Ben White
When our lives are literally directed by our Heavenly Father, we can have confidence in our course.
I believe that the most important part of any change process in our lives can be the weekly 10-minute revelatory conversations we have with our Savior Jesus Christ during the Sacrament service. We allow a sacrament hymn to soften our hearts. We invite sacred prayers to open our hearts, and—if we’re prepared, with a broken heart—we can, in a very real sense, sit with our Savior Jesus and get sweet revelatory counsel. We can repent of our faults and take assignments for the coming week in a revelatory experience that can be ours if we will allow it to happen. This one saving ordinance, The Holy Sacrament, is the one ordinance that, as Elder Holland reminds us, we are all blessed to participate in personally and often.
There’s a Cherokee legend that analogizes that there are two wolves that are always fighting within each of us. An elder chief of the tribe was teaching his grandson that there’s always a fight going on inside me and you. It’s a terrible fight. One wolf is evil and the other wolf is good. His grandson thought about what his grandpa had just explained. After a few minutes in thought he asked, “Grandpa, which wolf will win”? The wise grandfather replies, ”The one that you feed.”
*What does the word revelation or revelatory mean? See the chapter “Revelation” in True to the Faith.
Examining our thoughts and actions
Our thoughts are always the triggers of our actions and emotions. Why is it that we find ourselves in valleys of despair and sorrow possibly even fear and resentment, even after many of us have personally experienced the “fire in our bones of exceeding great joy and the peace that is ours through the powerful gift of the Holy Ghost”? Why do you think that is? Maybe a better question should be: How are we feeling right now? If you find yourself in a valley I would ask each of us to consider this: What have I been thinking about? Maybe a recent uncomfortable conversation with a family member, or possibly money or health problems. Or maybe worry about the things that others are thinking about us. Or, … you fill in the blank.
Our thoughts have a deep, deep, important significance to them, and they determine the feelings that we experience. How good we feel is directly proportional to what we are thinking at the time. If we’re thinking low resonance thoughts, we’ll feel lower emotions. Lower spiritual levels can only be risen above by acquiring additional light. When we can navigate through the jungle of our thoughts into God’s realm, it’s astounding the light that can permeate our souls! Believe it or choose not to believe it. Either way, the answer will be self-fulfilling.
I believe that massive spiritual transformation can be ours through sweet personal prayer and personal meditative scripture study. I believe we need to seriously contemplate what we’re allowing ourselves to think about. The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said and I believe he was having a personally revelatory experience when he penned the following: “We become what we think about all day long.”
I have to confess to some stupid things I do and have challenges taking control of. I know that I’m not alone in this. Like many of you, I’m older now and have had some wonderful experiences in my lifetime. But I also have many regrets, self-made issues that crop up, and weaknesses that can get out of control. There are a lot of things that I’ve learned, that I feel absolutely sure of. God doesn’t expect me to be perfect (in the worldly definition of perfection). He loves me and you anyway, and He shows His love through patient reminders. I like the way I am still brought to tears by His undeniable Spirit if I daily strive to repent. As long as we don’t give up striving, our imperfections continue serving their divine purpose of hopefully keeping us grounded, grateful, teachable, focused, humble and in need of turning to our Savior Jesus Christ.
This is one of the least known aspects of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by others not of our faith, and regretfully even by some of those in our own faith: we are an inclusive faith that not only sees and appreciates goodness and truth in other religious traditions but are willing to acknowledge divine action in those of other traditions. Joseph Smith taught,
“One of the grand fundamental principles of The Church of Jesus Christ is to receive truth. Let it come from whence it may” (Joseph Smith, quoted in History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed., Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1949, 5:499).
Dr. Daniel Brown is a psychologist and researcher at the Harvard Medical school. Dr. Brown had an experience with the Dalai Lama, who is as most of you know, revered as the spiritual leader of the nation of Tibet. One American psychologist asked the Dalai Lama, through a translator, how Buddhists deal with the issue of negative self-talk, e.g., “I’m not good enough”. The translator and his holiness the Dalai Lama then began a long discussion in the Tibetan language. The American psychologist, sitting there watching, began to wonder what was going wrong. Finally, they learned that these Easterners did not understand the concept of negative self-talk. His holiness turned to the psychologist who had asked the profound question and said, “why would you ever let your mind get like that”?
The power of meditation
One of our faith’s most beloved presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints taught the following:
“We pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. In our worship there are two elements: One is spiritual communion arising from our own meditation; the other, instruction from others, particularly from those who have authority to guide and instruct us. Of the two, the more profitable introspectively is the meditation” (David O. McKay, from “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay”).
He went on to say,
“Meditation is the language of the soul. It is defined as a form of private devotion…Meditation is a form of prayer…and Meditation is one of the most secret, most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord. Jesus set the example for us.”
What if we took the following latter-day scripture from Doctrine & Covenants, Section 88, verse 67 at its word?
“And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and the body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things”.
What do you believe would happen if we focused on that scripture, or “the glory of God” for just ten minutes this evening or tomorrow morning before we started on our daily routine? What does the “glory of God” mean to you? Have you experienced it? Of course you have. It’s always the backdrop of any powerful spiritual experience. I would venture to say that may be why you are still reading this. Our wonderful God-given experiences are unexplainable and undeniable when we honestly strive to keep ourselves close to the Spirit. Our deepest most piercing spiritual experiences cannot be sufficiently conveyed to us unless it is the Spirit who conveys them.
If you’re anything like me you’ve found that gaining and keeping a strong and vibrant testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ actually isn’t that difficult of a process. The problem for me, and maybe you too, is that it’s just a little bit easier NOT to do the things that it takes to keep and grow that testimony. Isn’t that our challenge?
A meditation
Here’s something you might feel prompted to do to let go of your negative self-talk and tune into God’s presence using the holy scriptures of God coupled with President David O’ McKay’s council on meditation:
Sit in a comfortable place where you can have private, quiet time.
Set a timer for just 5 minutes. Have you got 5 minutes to be physically and mentally still? Of our course we do.
Allow yourself to feel the glory of God. Initially, you might simply ponder the scripture in Doctrine & Covenants 88 over and over. Close your eyes and imagine what the “Glory of God” means to you. Let your “eye be single to Him”. We might imagine our body being filled with His light.
Think of and bear your personal testimony in your own mind. What has the Lord done for you? What knowledge has He given you personally? Feel that grateful projection of love going outward to Him. The higher we allow ourselves to climb, and the more we feel “One” with Him, the fewer words we think. This is scripture study, prayer, … and beyond!
When the alarm goes off, evaluate your progress. Did you succeed in “being single minded”? Did you notice negative or stray thoughts take over your mind? Notice when they come. If they overtake you, simply be aware of them; let them go, refocus, and try again. When we’re not feeling light in our souls on any given day, it may mean that we simply have walked on a lower spiritual path for a time.
My personal testimony is that scriptural meditation can have a massive transformational influence in my life. Ten minutes of intense “LIGHT” can change the direction and focus of my day. Over time we might want to extend the time dedicated to this empowering endeavor, combining it with additional scripture and prayer. For 10 minutes or more each day I believe we can choose to have an intimate reunion with our Heavenly Father through the power of the Savior’s love for each of us. I believe He wants to give us many things that we can best receive when we enter His presence.
“…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1st Corinthians 2:9).
The integrity to change
A story is told where a mother once brought her child to Mahatma Gandhi, a spiritual leader of many Indian people. This mother asked him to tell her young boy to stop eating sugar because it was not good for his diet or his developing teeth. Gandhi replied, “I cannot tell him that. But you may bring him back in a month”. The mother was upset as Gandhi moved on. She had traveled some distance and had expected the mighty leader to support her parenting. Having little recourse, she left for her home.
One month later she returned not knowing what to expect. Gandhi took the small child’s hand into his own, knelt before him, and tenderly said. “Do not eat sugar, my child. It is not good for you”. Then Gandhi embraced the boy. The perplexed mother asked why he hadn’t said that a month ago. “Well”, said Gandhi, “a month ago I was still eating sugar”.
That’s integrity! May we teach our children to pray and study the scriptures of God to gain and keep their own testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May we have the integrity of Gandhi to change if we’re not following the wise counsel of our leaders to daily ponder, study and pray. Even attempted virtue brings light.
The Book of Mormon prophet Alma taught that out of simple things great things come to pass (see Alma 37:6). I pray that you and I can overcome the easier path not to do them. Remembering the Savior and thinking about Him are certainly simple things, but I have a testimony that they can bring mighty transformational changes in our lives. I say these things in the name of our personal Savior, Jesus Christ.