Principle 8: Strong personal emotions can hinder our discernment of spiritual promptings.

Principle 8

Strong personal emotions can hinder our discernment of spiritual promptings.

Our Heavenly Father encourages us to converse with Him through prayer no matter our circumstances.

We can talk to Him personally and He will ever answer.

Can we ever really fathom the immense power of prayer until we encounter an overpowering, urgent problem and realize that we are powerless to resolve it?

It is in those depths that we turn to our Father in humble recognition of our total dependence on Him.

If we let our EMOTIONS influence decisions, we CANNOT be powerfully led by the Spirit.

The inspiring influence of the Holy Ghost can be OVERCOME or MASKED by STRONG emotions such as : 

ANGER,

 HATE,

 PASSION,

 FEAR,

 or PRIDE

It's like tying to savor the delicate flavor of a grape while eating a jalapeno pepper.

Strong emotions overcome the delicate prompting of the Holy Spirit.

We must keep our homes and lives free from discord or tension.  Spiritual directions will not come when the spirit is offended by unresolved differences with our loved ones even though they are small.  Even occasional uncontrolled emotion, disharmony, or anger will limit the spirit.

If we are emotionally involved in a problem, we may need additional help to see answers clearly, particularly when our challenges are difficult. 

A trusted, inspired outside source may help remind us how to better get the guidance we seek.

Richard G Scott tells of an experience that cause him immense anxiety that didn't have to do with disobedience or transgression, but with an very important human relationship.  This is what he said:

"I plead for help from that Eternal Father I have come to know and trust completely.  I could see not path that would provide the calm that is my blessing generally to enjoy.  Sleep overcame me. When I awoke, I was totally at peace.  Again I knelt in solemn prayer and asked, "Lord, how is it done?"  In my heart, I knew the answer was His love and His concern for me.  Such is the power of sincere prayer to a compassionate Father."

His answers will SELDOM come when you are on your KNEES praying, even when you plead for an immediate response.

RATHER, He will prompt you in quiet moments when the Spirit can most effectively touch your mind and heart.

As you SEEK His counsel in moments of PONDERING, you will rejoice to find SOLUTIONS to even your most perplexing problems.

My Thoughts:  Prayer is a remnant of the communication we used to enjoy with our Heavenly Father.  There is a familiarity and a comfort in prayer that reminds of a life we had before we came to earth.  We have to have urgent difficult problems that take us to our knees so that we can truly understand prayer and become humble enough to acknowledge our total dependence on Him. As we surrender our will to Him and our will becomes more in line with His, then we fine tune the station and communication becomes clearer and more direct.

If we really want our lives to be led by the Lord, we must take extra care to control those strong emotions.  That may mean making decisions that restrain ourselves even though restraint may not be what we want.  It is restraint in favor of gaining more spiritual help. Being aware that these feeling cause "interference" can help us understand that we may be impaired in our decision making.  I have been struck so much that this life is a time to learn to subject our bodies to our spirits, to learn how to temper those loud, strong emotions and sensations that are part of the natural man in favor of the things of the spirit.  We have to learn to turn off or turn down our physical senses so we can pay attention to the spiritual senses.  I remember the first time I put on noise cancelation headphone during a plane ride. I was surprise how much background noise there had been.  I hadn't even noticed it until that point.  With the headphones on, I could clearly hear my husbands voice and we were able to talk to each other in quiet, hushed voices.  We need to learn to put on those noise cancelation headphones to drown out the mortal white noise.

I am also thinking about how we need to remember our past successes with prayer and always go to the Lord in prayer for help instead of leaning on our own understanding.  It is important to reason decisions out in our minds, but we need to always take them to the Lord for confirmation.

This is the first time I have seen this actually written- that answers don't normally come while you are on your knees!  YES!  Thank you Elder Scott for saying that.  I thought there was something wrong with me because my answers were always delayed until the next morning when I was waking up or even days later when I was working in the yard or driving and just thinking on the matter.  IT IS SO IMPORTANT to have QUIET PONDERING MOMENTS so you can get those answers.  Now I don't have to fret when I'm not getting it right away.  I can trust that the answer will come later as I ponder my question.