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Brian D. Garner: 'Take opportunity to learn'
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Viewpoint: Every needful thing
In 1832 it was revealed through Joseph Smith to "organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:119). I had an important experience early in my life that helped me understand what the Lord means by a "house of order."
At age 17 I felt like everything in my life was going pretty well. I was active in the Church, I was surrounded by good friends, I was doing well in school, and had made a decision to live a righteous life. One evening, as I knelt to pray, I was overcome with a deep sense of appreciation for all the blessings I had received. I felt particularly close to my Heavenly Father during that prayer and my thinking and supplication turned to thoughts about my personal goals. In gratitude, I began to review things I wanted to do. I thought through my commitment to serve a mission, to go to on college. I looked forward to the time I had to prepare to meet my future wife and go to the temple.
My mind naturally shifted to other plans in my life. In particular, I began pondering about one goal I had set to get involved in a worthwhile activity that would take quite a bit of my time. As I came to that thought, an extremely dark and lonely feeling came over me. With every attempt to engage on the thought of this particular idea came a distinct forgetfulness, a hollow and dark feeling. I was immediately reminded of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 9:9 that reads, "But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong." The feeling was so strong that I stopped my prayer, sat on the floor in my room quite confused. It seemed so odd to me that I would have such an impression, particularly about my plans to be involved in something that seemed so worthwhile. After quite a long time of struggling with the idea, I finally knelt back down and asked, "Lord, should I not go ahead with those plans?" Although brief, I had a very strong and distinct feeling of peace about not moving ahead with my plans. The following morning I had a chance to talk to my parents about this experience. My parents had been very supportive of my intent to participate in this worthwhile activity and were also quite curious as to why I would have been praying about it and why I would have had such a strong impression to not move ahead. The confusion seemed to melt away when we all came to the conclusion that we shouldn't "lean unto [our] own understanding" but that we should trust the Lord. (Proverbs 3:5)
How grateful I am today that my parents understood the concept of establishing a house of order. They had created an environment where I felt free to set my own goals, and that I should exercise my faith in supplication the Lord. Once this point of inspiration came, they put their faith in me as I placed my faith in personal inspiration. A little more than a year later, when I would have been busy in my planned activity, an important call came to me to serve the Lord in an important way. It was very clear to me that I wouldn't have been able to serve then, had I made the decision to pursue my own goals. I will forever be grateful for the knowledge that the Lord cares enough about me to help me change my plans in order that I might serve Him. How grateful I am that my parents understood the principle of creating a house of order that included putting our trust in the Lord first.
