Visit of Elder Bednar

Visit of Elder Bednar

 We had the visit of Elder Bednar last week where we had him come to do a broadcast for us. The meeting was broadcasted to the 96 Stakes in the Philippines. He likes to use the format of questions and answers from people who submitted them and from the audience.

The meeting lasted for two hours.  There were a number of questions asked so I will get to two questions this time around and do the rest some other time. With Elder Bednar was his wife, Susan and the Area President and his wife. (The Bowens)

First Question: How can I press forward in faith when my faith is shaky and I feel God is far away?

Elder Bednar: We need to understand what faith in the Lord Jesus Christ really is… President Packer has stated: “There is faith that makes things happen, and there is faith to accept things that can not be changed;  and we need to have both.” Faith is always focused in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is always linked to the Savior. Faith is the principle of action and the power in all intelligent beings. We need to understand that there is a sequence first, we act in accordance with the teachings of Christ then we are blessed to receive the power of His spirit. Faith is a principle of action, pressing forward is faith. The opposite is fear which is a principle of inaction. It’s o.k. to feel a little shaky as long as you are pressing forward. Is when we stop when we are in trouble. The Savior said: “Look unto me, in every thought don’t doubt fear not.” Doubt is disbelieving, doubt is cynical. To have questions is not doubt, but to have disaffirming doubt is a spiritual problem. As we press forward, as we are acting that is faith we have questions along the way, that is fine. We seek to resolve those questions. We ask, we seek, we knock. All these are action words. So we do the simple things, the Savior says, and sometimes we may encounter trouble. The question is, will we stop or press forward? Keep pressing forward in the things you know you should do.

Sister Bednar: What came to mind is the talk President Eyering gave some time ago where he asks this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch me today or my children or my family and he said he writes down every night the answer to that question in his journal. I have tried this and it’s a wonderful way where you feel the presence of the Lord every single day. That is one way you can make sure he doesn’t feel far away.

Sister Bowen: God never moves away from us. If you are feeling far away is our responsibility to move toward him. If you look for those blessings bestowed upon you will realize that he is not that far from you and if you show gratitude that brings you closer to the Lord.

Elder Bowen: Marion G. Romney said: When he feels distancing from His Father in Heaven he submerges in the Book of Mormon. When we have those feelings we pray, we study the Book of Mormon. All that is unfair in life can be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Life is not fair and we need to know that we are not being punished. As I try to get near to Him, He gets near to me. Again remember what Elder Packer taught: Faith himself There is faith that makes things happen and there is faith to accept things that are not going to change.

How can I feel peace and receive forgiveness for my mistakes?

Sister Bednar: I think that we can feel forgiveness when we know we have tried to repent. Every week when we take the sacrament we can remember how glorious and good our Savior Jesus Christ is to us. He grants that forgiveness when we repent and we can be reminded of it each week when we partake of the sacrament.

Elder Bednar: I wish I could visit with this person because the word in the question is mistakes and mistakes are normal. Mistakes are not sins. If we have a Gospel attitude as we press forward we will make lots of mistakes and they provide tremendous opportunities for us to learn. None of us want to make mistakes, we don’t want to learn from mistakes but yet we can be blessed to learn from mistakes that we make. In our Church callings we all do things wrong, we make mistakes when we are conduction a meeting, we may misspeak when we are teaching a lesson that quite normal. But if we beat ourselves up and think that somehow there is something is wrong with us, frankly we are quite normal. The Church is a laboratory for the perfecting of the Saints, not for the Perfect Saints. And we practice on each other and sometimes we make mistakes. So I think we can feel peace and forgiveness if we are seeking the help of the Holy Ghost to learn from some of the things that we do that are not quite perfect. If is a sin, then we have a responsibility to recognize the sin and repent and I want to make one observation about repentance. We always talk about the R’s of repentance we are to recognize the sin feel remorse of the sin and we are to make restitution. But the most important R is not on that list. Redeemer! Repentance is not simply changing our behavior; repentance is relying upon the Lord as we seek forgiveness and then strive to improve but we can’t do that without the Savior and Redeemer. There are people who demonstrate tremendous determination and will power and they change their behavior That is not repentance. It is repentance when we have violated one of the commandments, we recognize the sin, we feel sorrow and we acknowledge and recognize our total dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ to be rehabilitated from that sin. The word repent means to turn again to the Lord. When we sin we turn away from Him when we repent we turn back to him, that is what produces peace in forgiveness is turning to Him not simply changing our behavior but relying on him to be changed so that ultimate we have no disposition to do evil.

Elder Bowen: What if I have repented and fallen back on doing the same thing, When do I become unforgivable?

Elder Bednar: Never, you just keep pressing forward, this is going back to the first question, what if my faith feels shaky. What is faith?  a principle of action and we are to press forward. I love the imagery in 2 Nephi of pressing forward with the steadfastness in Christ what is the opposite of faith? stopping in action we hope that there is an increment of improvement each time we start to get a little better and overcome the sin. But we never stop we are always capable of being forgiven. What is the alternative? You stop and you don’t repent? that is not a good alternative there is no peace and happiness in that!  Knowing we can have the Lord to press forward to me is the great source of hope because we have his help.

Elder Bowen: would you say that two tools of Satan that would be opposite of that would be doubt and fear? I doubt myself, I fear…

Elder Bednar: “Look unto me” He said “in every thought, doubt not, fear not.” Doubt is negative doubt is cynical, doubt is disbelieving, not questioning disbelieving so He said don’t doubt He didn’t say don’t question and fear not faith is action in accordance with the teachings of Christ fear is inaction.

Prior to this meeting we had dinner with him and afterwards we were able to sit around a conference table where he asked the people in the room to ask him more questions. I felt very touched when he bore His testimony and I felt of his love and concern for the Filipino people.

He went home after a stake conference he attended on Sunday. I will write again in two weeks because next week we are going to be in Sydney Australia attending a cluster meeting with Bishop Waddell. I always wanted to go to Australia and that time is now. Yay!

Con amor,

Vero