True Prayer

I am finally getting around to reading June's Ensign. For some reason, until Friday morning, I felt little desire to read Elder Uchtdorf's message meant to be used for home teaching. That morning, however, I felt drawn to it. His messages often speak to my heart, and this one was no different.

It never ceases to astonish me how the things I have been taught by the Spirit often come into concrete description as I read scripture. Once, I read to learn. Lately, it seems I read to cement knowledge in my mind and heart. As I read this article, one phrase in particular stood out to me: "Our prayers should spring from our deepest yearning to be one with our Father in Heaven."

As I read this, the thought came clearly that not only should prayers spring from our desire to be one with God, but that our prayers are that desire. When Amulek taught that we should "let [our] hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for [our] welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around [us]," he was referring to this desire to be one with God, and to be one with His other children.

In Luke, Jesus teaches that if we pray always, we "may be accounted worthy to escape all [the] things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." In other words, if we are able to make the desire to be one with God, and one with His other children (which may be called charity) part of our deepest yearning, part of what imprints our very souls, we will be worthy to escape the consequences of sin and unite ourselves with the Savior.

I do not think that this is a fringe doctrine. I believe it is the doctrine around which everything in the Gospel hinges. It is this yearning to not only be one with God the Father ourselves, but to be one with all of His children who also yearn to be one with Him, that caused the greatest spirit of us all to humbly and meekly submit to spiritual, emotional and physical pain beyond imagining. It is the pain He suffered—which He did not need to suffer—which enabled Him to offer us freedom from that pain, to offer the cancellation of that debt we incur when we sin.

"And [this] remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love (the desire to be united with our brothers and sisters), which love endureth by diligence unto prayer (the desire to be united to God), until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God."
Moroni 8:26