Lesson for January 24, 2016

Lesson for January 24, 2016 Today our lesson was given by Kristine Hansen on a talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf “It Works Wonderfully,” and a talk by Elder Maynes “The Joy of Living a Christ-Centered Life,” and a talk by Sister Marriott “Yielding Our Hearts to God.” The challenge from last week was to center your life in Christ. Three questions we should ask ourselves: Is my experience in the Church working for me, bringing peace and ?? We all through periods of spiritual drought that can last for weeks or months. We see others who are happy and ask ourselves what is the difference. President Uchtdorf said to simplify your approach to your discipleship and to start where you are. He told of a sister who had to teach a relief Society lesson and wanted to make a quilt a visual aid and had to stay up all night the night before and in the middle of the quilt it said “Simplify.” If we hear the word of God, we then believe more, and we feel His love, and then we want to follow the word of God and then we want to serve God and others and then we are more likely to hear the word of God. We should not over-program others and our stewardships or we complicate our lives. We don’t need to do everything at once. Kristine said she is happiest when she is doing the basics. You don’t have to be more of anything for God to make us who we should be. God will take you as you are and all you need is a willing heart and a desire to trust in the Lord. It’s like being on a diet when you indulge in food and gain back weight. You can still diet again. If you slide back you can start over. We should feel the same way about our children and husbands and love them as they are. They can start at whatever point they are at the moment. Elder Maynes suggested to center your life on Christ. He had a story about pottery making and some Japenese students who went to learn pottery making. They had to learn to center the lump of clay on the wheel and then they could do the task. The world in which we live is like a potter’s wheel and is getting faster. If we center our lives on Christ, we will stay centered and He can successfully mold us into who we should be in relation to how well we are centered. We can all be centered as the clay, not the potter. God is the potter. We have to be willing to be shaped. Also when clay doesn’t turn out right, you don’t get rid of it, you get it back into a lump by slapping it and thumping it and reshaping it. We learn from our failures. We can start again. Where do we start? We can start with prayer if we aren’t sure of the shape we should be in, we can pray to know. If we are unsure and don’t know what to do, we know we can pray. Prayer is a beginning. In the sacrament we are urged to always remember Christ. We can make choices we know He would approve of. Remember how much you value the gospel? Lehi’s family, when they were centered in Christ, lived after the manner of happiness. Even when we can’t attend church as often, even when our loved ones do things that are not good, we can do things to center our lives in Christ and we can be comforted. We are supposed to record our testimonies and if we share those feelings, we will be strengthened. Sister Marriott and her family had a motto that “Everything will work out.” Her daughter died from a bicycle accident while Sister Marriott and her husband were on a mission. So how does this motto work in such a situation? It speaks of an eternal outcome and a long view. It doesn’t say everything will work out now, but in the eternities. The end could be at the end of this week, the end of this year, or the end of this life, or beyond. Heavenly Father might look at us like we view our children, when some things that seem so overwhelming to us now are not that huge in an eternal perspective. It’s never done. Not for us and it is not done for our loved ones. Elder Packer said our lives are a three-act play when act one is about getting to know things, act two is when all the trouble happens, and act three is happily ever after—and this life is act two. Adele Hickman’s brother died five years ago and it was devastating. Then they remembered where he is now and were comforted. Even death is not the end, even if the all right is not what we want it to be. Sister Marriott urged us to yield our hearts to God. She takes sacrament time to try to recognize what we need to do, especially if we have the Spirit with us and have a broken heart and are willing for god to heal us. The gospel will work for us.