January 2014 Teach for Our Times Lesson

We Never Walk Alone BY PRESIDENT THOMAS S. MONSON

You will one day stand aside and look at your difficult times, and you will realize that He was always there beside you.

LEARNER READINESS

Say: The Stake Presidency's topic for the month of January is Pray and other basic gospel principles.

I was given three talks to study:

a. We Never Walk Alone by President Thomas S. Monson

b. The Doctrines and Principles Contained in the Articles of Faith by Elder L. Tom Perry

c. Power in the Priesthood by Elder Neil L. Anderson

But, I ended up using only President Monson's talk.

READ A

A - We were not placed on this earth to walk alone. What an amazing source of power, of strength, and of comfort is available to each of us. He who knows us better than we know ourselves, He who sees the larger picture and who knows the end from the beginning, has assured us that He will be there for us to provide help if we but ask. We have the promise: “Pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good.”4

Say: Be thinking about how prayer has blessed your life.

Say: To prepare our minds, let's listen to some of the words of President Monson.

READ B

B - Wherever we are in life, there are times when all of us have challenges and struggles. Although they are different for each, they are common to all.

[challenges common to all]

READ C

C - Many of the challenges we face exist because we live in this mortal world, populated by all manner of individuals. At times we ask in desperation, “How can I keep my sights firmly fixed on the celestial as I navigate through this telestial world?”

[How can we keep our sights on the Celestial?]

READ D

D - There will be times when you will walk a path strewn with thorns and marked by struggle. There may be times when you feel detached—even isolated—from the Giver of every good gift. You worry that you walk alone. Fear replaces faith.

[Do we ever feel detached from God?]

Say: President Monson provides us with a few suggestions to help us as we travel this wilderness of mortal life.

READ E

E - When you find yourself in such circumstances, I plead with you to remember prayer. I love the words of President Ezra Taft Benson concerning prayer. Said he:

“All through my life the counsel to depend on prayer has been prized above almost any other advice I have … received. It has become an integral part of me—an anchor, a constant source of strength, and the basis of my knowledge of things divine. …

“… Though reverses come, in prayer we can find reassurance, for God will speak peace to the soul. That peace, that spirit of serenity, is life’s greatest blessing.”2

LEARNER INVOLVEMENT

Q: Why can prayer bring peace the soul?
1. We leave things in God's hands
2. We receive peace from God

Q: When we ask for something that is out of our control, are we in effect leaving the matter in the hands of God? Are we to fret about the matter after we leave it in the hands of the Lord?

Q: What is the medium used by the Lord, to deliver peace to our souls?

SAY:  President Monson goes on to say that by coupling prayer with scripture study “we will experience the sweet whisperings of the Spirit to our souls.”

SAY: For the remainder of the time I would like to read a few quotes about trouble and peace from a talk on the Holy Ghost that President Eyring gave a few years ago at BYU - Idaho?

SAY:  I have asked Del Gardner to read to us a portion of President Eyrings’ talk.

READ (Del Gardner)

If you examine your own experience carefully and honestly, you will see that you tend to seek the Holy Ghost most fervently when you are humbled by difficult circumstances or life-changing decisions.

Remember the time you faced the prospect of teaching the gospel as a missionary perhaps in a new language where you couldn’t understand what people were saying and you couldn’t put a sentence together. Or, remember a time you had to make choices that might lead you toward, or away from, marrying someone. Those moments probably brought a great desire for the faith and the capacity to get the help of the Holy Ghost.

But if we have to be in trouble to want the Holy Ghost as a constant companion, then to have that steady desire we will have to be in steady trouble. There has to be a better way.
Happily, there is. Now you will have to find your own. I’ll tell you mine. There is one for me that works: I choose to remind myself about my experience with what prophets have said about the peace and happiness that comes with the visitation of the Holy Ghost. It has been true in my life. Wilford Woodruff described it this way:

You may surround any man or woman with all the wealth and glory that the imagination of man can grasp, and are they satisfied? No. There is still an aching void. On the other hand, show me a beggar upon the streets, who has the Holy Ghost, whose mind is filled with that Spirit and power, and I will show you a person who has peace of mind, who possesses true riches, and those enjoyments that no man can obtain from any other source (Journal of Discourses, Vo. 2, p. 199, Wilford Woodruff, February 25, 1855).

That has been true for me. One of the ways I know that I’m feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost is that I feel a light and I am happy. When the Holy Ghost seems far from me, I feel a darkness and I am not happy. I have felt that ebb and flow of light and happiness in my life and so have you.

I like to feel of that light and I like to be happy. I don’t have to wait for troubles and tests to make me want the help of the Holy Ghost. I can choose to remember what that companionship has been like, and whenever I do, I want that blessing again with my whole heart.

SAY: Thank you Del

LEARNER APPLICATION

Q: How does President Eyring know he has the companionship of the Holy Ghost?

Q: How does the companionship of the Holy Ghost help us as we travel on our journey in mortality?  With our challenges and our trouble?

Q: How do we get this companionship of the Holy Ghost?

[We plead for it, our deep repentance, we study the scriptures, and we continue to set higher and higher standards.

TELL:  President Webb thoughts: Why would God send to you a member of the Godhead to be your companion without effort on your part? When we plateau off or get complacent, we start feeling distant from God. The answer is constant and increase effort on our part.

SAY: President Eyring says this:

READ F

F - As the challenges around us increase, we must commit to do more to qualify for the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Casual prayer won’t be enough. Reading a few verses of the scripture won’t be enough. Doing the minimum of what the Lord asks of us won’t be enough. Hoping that we will have the Atonement work in our lives and that we will perhaps sometimes feel the influence of the Holy Ghost won’t be enough. And one great burst of effort won’t be enough. Only a steady, ever-increasing effort will allow the Lord to take us to higher ground.

Q: What does it mean to have ever- increasing effort?
Q: How do we know what our new efforts should be?

READ G

G - When we want the Holy Ghost and the peace of mind and enjoyment that comes with it, we know what to do. We plead with God for it in faith. It takes the prayer of faith to bring the companionship of the Holy Ghost. That faith has to be that God the Father, the Creator of all things, lives and wants us to have the Holy Ghost and wants to send us the Comforter. It takes faith that Jesus is the Christ and that He atoned for our sins and broke the bands of death. With that faith we approach our Father in reverence and with confidence that He will answer. With that faith we close our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ as His true disciples, confident that our deep repentance, our baptism by His servants, and our faithful service in His cause have purified us and made us clean and worthy of the blessing we seek, the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

CONCLUSION

President Benson “… Though reverses come, in prayer we can find reassurance, for God will speak peace to the soul. That peace, that spirit of serenity, is life’s greatest blessing.