Today's Favorite Verse: 2 Nephi 32:8
"And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray."
I have learned to love to pray. It wasn't always so. If a teacher in class wanted someone to say the prayer, I would not make eye contact and silently wish to myself, "Don't pick me." At home I would try to get out of saying the prayer, and say its so and so's turn, or I wasn't in the mood. Sometimes it was hard to get anyone in the family to say the prayer because everyone had a reason why they didn't want to. It felt like a chore no one wanted to do, myself included.
Then one day I decided that I was wrong and those feelings needed to change. I wanted instead to be grateful that I had an opportunity to pray. I wanted to be able to say thank you for letting me say the prayer, or I'm honored to do so. I needed to learn to love saying personal and public prayers. I needed a change of heart. I started by joining in prayers in the temple. Then I started by offering to say the prayer at home. In fact every day I immediately offered to say one of the prayers for family scripture reading. Whenever I read or heard of someone facing a trial I would stop and immediately say a prayer for them. Not just saying I would on Facebook or passingly mention that I would and often forget to. I found the only way you learn to love to pray is to pray more. I am praying all the time.
After doing all this and learning to love to pray, I noticed that my family was still arguing about who's turn it was for scripture prayers or blessings on the food. No on was happy about saying the prayer. Sometimes I would say both the opening and closing prayer simply so they wouldn't argue. One night I had enough, I knew the spirit was being offended. I asked them how they would like to have someone in their hearing say they didn't want to talk to them and then turn around and talk to them? You really wouldn't want to listen to a thing they said. Well how did they think Heavenly Father felt about talking to us when we were arguing about who would be made to speak with him. I wouldn't want to listen to anything you had to say either. It was something none of them had ever thought about and they took it to heart.
Since then the offering to say the prayer has changed in our home. And with it the whole feeling during the prayer has changed. The spirit is so powerful and strong. The prayers are not so rote but are becoming more heartfelt. Now I can see in this verse that when we don't feel like praying it really is an evil spirit that is trying so hard to get us to not want to. I didn't fully realized that before. I learned this lesson and experienced the difference before totally understanding who was the source of the problem. How can you pray to Heavenly Father when your listening to an evil spirit telling you not to. I am so very grateful the true spirit has helped me learn to love to pray. I'm grateful it has instructed my whole family to experience this change of heart.
Day 233 Tami Fitzgerald Harris
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