Act- ask, seek, and knock

I've loved reading all of your comments. It has really made the o'l wheels in my head start a turn'n.


This whole discussion made me think back to a lesson I learned from attending a Q&A session with Elder Bednar a few years back. What I learned has completely changed my (and my husbands) approach to scripture study. Elder Bednar frequently speaks of the concept, "asking, seeking, and knocking." He spoke of it in this session and has sense spoke of it in conference. He expressed: 


“Worldly influences would hinder use of our agency afforded through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  But we are agents who can act, and that affects everything in terms of how we live the gospel in our daily lives. It affects how we pray, how we study the scriptures, how we worship at church. There is a difference when one goes to a sacrament meeting essentially as an object waiting to be acted upon—‘Feed me, give me something’—as opposed to worshiping in sacrament meeting as an agent where you are acting—asking, seeking, and knocking." 


As he explained this concept He encouraged us to take our personal questions to the Lord and study the scriptures to find the answers.  He promised we would receive the answers we needed. 


My husband and I decided to take his challenge. It was during a particularly hard time when we were dealing with a lot of difficult questions. Each night before our couple scripture study we would think of a question we wanted answered. Some were simple such as, "How can we develop greater love for others?" or "What can we do to reduce our stress" and others were more direct such as, "How will we know what graduate school to attend?" We then proceeded to read our chapter in the Book of Mormon like normal. Then after we finished we took turns explaining what answers jumped out to us. Sometimes we came up with the same things, but more often than not, we saw two different answers. My husband is able to see so many things I'm not and visa versa. The amazing thing is that we received the answer we were looking for every singe time! It was amazing! It would spur further discussion and help us apply the scriptures directly into our lives. 


Life happens and we stopped doing that- but all your comments on the blog have prompted me to begin that way of studying again. We can have an amazing gospel discussion in 5-10 minutes. I know we should probably be spending more time, but extra time is hard to come by these days and we've found that this type of study for 10 minutes is far better than just simply reading for 30 minutes. We feel the spirit every single time! I'm sure some of you already study this way, but it has opened a whole new world for us :)  


Again referencing Elder Bednar, I recently read the conference talk he gave 2 years ago about raising children. It applies perfectly to this topic. He talks about 3 ways to raise children in this crazy world 1- Reading and talking about the Book of Mormon (which ya'll mentioned. Angela I love your idea of making this type of discussion less formal. It goes right along with what he said next...) 2. Bear testimony spontaneously, and 3. Inviting children to act (which is basically using the approach I mentioned above with your children. Our babes are probably a little young for that- but wouldn't it be awesome to have FHE in the future where all your kids gather around with questions and you spend the evening searching the scriptures together?). I know you guys all have oodles of time and can read to your hearts content (insert sarcasm) but if any of you get a free second and want to read his address again, you can find it HERE. 

Wow that was super long winded! I promise not to be so long in the future!

Thanks for all your comments and ideas.