Distractions and Divine Purpose

You can listen to this post here.

Well hello everyone!  It is so good to be back!  I have been so, so, sick these past few weeks and haven’t been able to even speak for a portion of the time.  I have missed talking with you, my friends! And I’m happy to be back. It seems that just when I was ready to pick things back up again, this happened and put a halt to it all once again.  But I’m determined to get back on track and be able to visit with you regularly again.

I have been thinking so much about divine potential lately, and how the adversary works so hard to keep us from reaching it!  I feel like it is a very, very important topic that is so, so prevalent in our society today.  We are pulled in so many different directions every, single, day!!!!  It is a never ending battle that we as women and men in the gospel of Jesus of Christ will deal with even more intensity as the world gets darker and the enemy gets stronger.  

It is a valiant fight.  And one of the important principles that I want to bring out is that we are never, ever, alone in this battle. This is a fight to find and live our divine purpose as followers of Christ.  We need each other.  We need our Savior.  And we need personal revelation.  And in learning to receive that personal revelation there WILL be miracles.  It’s just the way of the Savior. He is a God of miracles.  

We can witness those miracles everyday in our individual lives if we allow Him to work wonders for us.  We have been given so many resources to help us in our daily lives and that list of resources is increasing at a rapid pace.

One of those resources is given to every member of the church at a certain time in their life.  And that is their patriarchal blessing.  I cherish my blessing and have read it thousands of times.  It is worn and marked and I learn new things every time I study it.  I keep a copy of it just inside the cover of my Book of Mormon so that when I am studying my scriptures, it is a constant reminder of the importance of my own personal scripture from God. That is how significantly I view my blessing.  There are elements in my blessing that have been such a strength to me throughout my life and statements that I fall back to all the time.  It helps me in times of sadness and trial as well as in times of joy and peace.

But the main reason that I wanted to bring it up today is because I believe within every blessing we are given instructions on how to cope, overcome, and rise above the distractions and cunning ways of the adversary in our lives that cloud our ability to see and live up to our divine potential that we have each been sacredly endowed with by our Savior Jesus Christ.

So today I want to talk about distractions, our divine purpose, personal revelation, and the importance that remembrance plays in all of our endeavors concerning living our divine purpose. And Scriptures that give us insight into our divine purpose and maybe a little plug for journaling because that’s how we remember our sacred experiences.

I hope that in this episode, you will be able to find some peace and strength to endure whatever struggle it is that you may be experiencing.  And if you are blessed to be in a time when your burdens are light… I hope that you will look around and see how you can be a miracle for someone else in their personal battle against the distractions and trials of our day and time. 

I wanted to share a little part of my blessing with you today because it concerns my own personal struggle with my divine potential and it is a part of my blessing that I find a little humor in. 

There is a little known fact about me that I don’t share often. But in this case for the purpose of this particular experience I must share this fact.  Back in the day,,,,think early 2000s, I got caught up in the pageant industry.  I was married with young children at the time and had always been intrigued by pageants.  But I never had a chance to participate in them when I was a teen.  

Well, I was a young mom who had finally managed to get all my babies in school full time and I was looking for a way to get me out of my comfort zone.  A friend who had competed in the Mrs. pageant system suggested I get involved.  It sounded like a great way for me to really “find” myself and get out in my community and serve at the same time.  So I jumped on board. 

I didn’t have any experience with pageants, but I quickly learned that it is more about the journey than the destination.  That’s where the most growth occurs.  However, seeking that elusive crown is a big motivator, lol.  Long story short, I competed in 2000 and made 1st runner up.  Well that was just too close for me, so I ran again the next year and won the crown!  It was a great experience for the most part.  But I will never forget how the Lord chastened me (and maybe joked a little bit) one day as I was reading my blessing.  I won’t share it word for word because our blessings are sacred and personal.  But, there is a part of the blessing that talks about how I will share my light with others and that the gospel will “pilot” me on making life successful and in meriting the “crown” that is rightly mine to inherit….  

When I came across that line I had to chuckle a little because I was about to get on a plane and be piloted to Tennessee where I would compete for a national title, wearing a physical crown that I had earned over those past two years.  It was like the Lord was reminding me the “crown” I should actually be chasing, was not a physical crown at all.  What a great lesson that was for me.  I keep that physical crown in a box of momentos to remind me of how hard I worked to earn it, but also to remind me of the REAL crown that I will one day receive should I remain faithful and true to my covenants in this life and live up to my own divine potential.  

That journey has definitely been full of twists and turns and ups and downs.  With both wins and losses.  But I find that as I try to stay true to my covenants and be faithful, that I have more joy and strength to get through the crazy deceptive ways of the adversary on a daily basis.  

But it is definitely an ongoing struggle.  As I am sure it is for you as well.

I want to encourage you, if you have not read your blessing in a while, get it out.  Read through it, study it, ponder it.  Highlight and underline things that stand out to you.  I believe you will find that the Lord has given you nuggets of gold to help you endure and make this life successful.  But sometimes we do really have to dig in to find them. And sometimes we will find a part that means something different at one time in our life than another.  That’s why we need to be reading and studying them often.  And that’s one way that we can also step away from social media and the ways of the world, and step into our own personal revelation and find ways to remember our own divine potential and how to live up to it.

One woman that I truly admire in our faith is Emma Smith!  I recently read in the Doctrine and Covenants section 25 the revelation given to her from God, through her husband, the Prophet Joseph Smith.  You can find the link to Emma’s entire blessing that is posted on the church website here blessing.  

I believe we can all learn a lot from that revelation about how to live up to our divine potential.  I found so many good things to remind me of how to do that, starting with the very first word, “hearken”.  Which caught my attention right away.  I looked up the word because I thought it curious that the Lord would use that specific word.  Some of the definitions said… “listen up”, “be all ears”, “pay attention”!  Well that got my attention.  This is something really, really important. It’s a short 16 verses. But boy is it packed with ways to remind us of how we can each live up to and achieve our full potential. I especially love verse 10 where it says, “lay aside the things of this world, and seek for things of a better”.  It is such a short statement, but can literally change our lives.  

In reference to that verse, I specifically marked the footnote to the word “better” and it said to look up “reward” in the topical guide. So I did and some of the words that stuck out to me are benefit, profit, and wouldn’t you know it “crown”!

Like wise, in verse15 it says something remarkably similar to my own blessing where it again mentions… a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive.  Is there any doubt how important God’s daughters are to Him?  He sees us all as queens and we should see ourselves that way as well.

All of that  reminded me of scripture in 2 Timothy 4:8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: And I just love the thought of that!

However, In our world today, we can be easily deceived by Satan’s schemes and evilness. Doom scrolling on social media and other internet apps can be so draining to our spirit.  We need to be extremely careful about what we allow our minds to take in.  Because it can literally be “mind numbing”, and spiritually numbing. We need to protect ourselves.  We need to be intentional about what we let into our minds.  

We have the ability to train our algorithms by what we search for.  Did you know that? What we search for creates an instant playlist for what we will be shown. So we need to be cautious and careful.

There are a few rules that we can look to, that I learned from Sister Emily Freeman.  If it causes you to doubt God or think less of yourself as a person, unfollow. If it causes you to be less satisfied or discouraged, unfollow.  If it causes you to question yourself in a way that you normally would not have, unfollow.  And I would add if it is not uplifting to your spirit, unfollow.

On the other hand there are really good things to be found if we are looking in the right places on social platforms.  For example this is my little plug for an instagram account that I follow called Inklings.institute.  It is a weekly study of what the prophet has asked of us to study after each conference session.  We will study a specific topic for 6 months (until the next conference), learning all that we can with a deep dive into pieces of that subject.  

That was the reason that I was recently studying Section 25.  A couple of weeks ago, (week 06 on the Inklings institute page),the topic was all about section 25 and the talk that Sister Emily Belle Freeman, Young Women General Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, gave. 

This study on Inklings Institute is led by Emily Belle Freeman. Can you tell how much I love this woman? I was able to hear her speak in a Time out for women conference a few years ago and even got have a photo with her that I treasure. Oh what a wealth of knowledge and goodness she has to share with us. In one week recently, she said, “Women bring a gentleness, wisdom, intuition, and a depth of knowledge to the table that we sometimes forget.” -Emily Belle Freeman- 

I loved that statement because it just reminds us of how much each of us have to offer. I don’t know why, but we as women tend to diminish our value so easily.  And so that just really made me think about the things that I bring to the table as a daughter of a King.  I mean even that mere statement, “Daughter of a King” should help us to recognize that we are divine and we do have a designated place in the kingdom of our Father.    

Going back to Emma.  In Doctrine and Covenants section 25 of which I referred to was a revelation given for her through Joseph, from what I understand, letters were exchanged between he and Emma while Joseph was in hiding because of all the persecution upon the saints.  Emma had desired a blessing.  So Joseph told Emma to write up the desires of her heart because he was unable to give her that blessing at that time.  And that when he returned he would sign the blessing.  In her own words, found in the blessing that I linked above, state, “ (Emma speaking) “These desires of my heart were called forth by Joseph sending me word that he had not the time to write as he would like, but I could write out the best blessing I could think of and he would sign the same on his return.”

A few years back I was encouraged by a therapist to write a letter to my younger self.  The one that thought, at the time, that I was such a failure in so many ways..  So I took that upon me.  I stumbled across it recently, and I was brought to tears as I described the blessings that had come over the years along with trials and heartbreak.  But what an amazing exercise that was to help me discover that with every trial there is and equal or greater blessing in store.  That would be something you could try as well.

I also highly encourage you to go and read Emma’s blessing along with section 25 because I think that you will find that many of her desires are things that we, today, desire.  So this section is very applicable to us as women searching for our divinity. It can also give us inspiration and guidance as to how we can rise above the cunning ways of the adversary each and every day.

The very first sentence, I believe, perfectly states what each of us want. It then gives us the exact anecdote to find that.  In this example I am referring to the blessing Emma wrote for herself.

I don’t want to share all of it because I really want you to go study and read it yourself.  We all are in so many different stages of life and the words  are going to hit differently for each one of us.  But what I got out of it was that her greatest desire was to be able to be all that the Lord wanted her to be so that at the end of the day she would have no regrets.  And then she says, “nor neglect the performance of any act that would bring a blessing.”  That sounds like ministering and serving to me.  

That is another significant way that you can avoid Satan’s cunning ways.  you can reach out and serve others, pray for them, and love on them, in ways that only you can do.  

I have so many stories, many that I have shared on the podcast, about when I have acted on certain impressions to serve and the miracles came because of listening to those promptings. But the main thing I want to stress about that is to always be willing to share.  Sometimes our current situation and timing won’t allow us to take on all of the promptings. But I think our willingness to do so, if we could,will go a long way.

One scripture that has helped me so much, is found in Mosiah 24:13-14.

I’m not going to put the whole scripture here.  But in essence what it says is that “… I the Lord have covenanted with you that I will take care of you so that you may “stand as a witness hereafter”.

So whenever I am asked to do something or prompted to do something for someone that is good and right I always think about this scripture and it reminds me that the Lord is keeping HIs part of the covenant. He is taking care of me in so many ways, and given me so many blessings, that the least I can do is stand as a witness and help someone in their time of need.  Am I perfect at it?  Heavens, no! I wish I could say that I am. Life is hard and busy and full of so many distractions.  It takes effort to be able to serve and fulfill callings and promptings.  But remember President Nelson’s words, “The Lord Loves Effort!”

Speaking of scriptures as a resource, I saw a mime reel recently about scripture study that was comical, but at the same time, not, because it is so true.  It shows how it would look if we treated our scriptures like we treat our phones.  Would we carry them in our pockets, in our cars, run back to get them if we forget them?  Would we take every opportunity to open them just to see what’s happening?

I’ll have to see if I can find it and post it on my stories because it really makes you think. And it will make you laugh a little too at the irony of it.

So I guess what I’m trying to point out is to find things like scriptures, service, patriarchal blessings, temple attendance, etc. that will lift your spirit and ignite your soul.  Instead of making you feel mindless and numb and insignificant. Look for things that will help you to see the you, that you can BECOME not the you that wants to be like every other person or influencer of the day.  

You have divine and special God-given gifts and talents that only you can give.  Which is part of your journey to inherit that special “crown” that I have talked about today.  

One last note before I sign off for now. Well maybe two,lol. First, do you know how many times the word remember is in the scriptures?  I haven’t counted, but I would say hundreds.  Why is that?  The Lord wants us to remember who we are, who we are meant to BECOME.  It’s so important to use these resources that we have been blessed with to help us be reminded daily.  And that includes a journal of your most sacred experiences with the Lord, serving and standing as His witness.  You know me, I love journals so I can’t do this episode without giving them a plug.  Especially since the new year is right around the corner and you can make a goal to write more in one.

And Second, we are about to come up on a new year.  What better time than now to start living up to our divine potential.  A chinese proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago!  The second best time is today!”  

It’s never too late to start working toward your BECOMING. toward your “crown” of righteousness. Don’t worry about the past years that you may not have  fulfilled your desires.  Just move forward now and know that ALL of your journey has purpose.  

Let’s work together to fight the evils of our day.  To use all of our resources and especially our personal revelation to help build up the kingdom of God on the Earth today.  Let’s be all in, in 2025 and beyond! I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New year!  This will be my last podcast of 2024 but I will definitely be with you again Next year! Have a great couple of weeks my friends.  Talk to you all again soon!