I gave this talk in our church meetings today and thought I’d post it. There are a few paragraphs that are copied from previous posts, so my apologies to regular readers of this blog.
When I served my mission in Chile far too many years ago, one of the things we would teach investigators is how to pray. Chile was a very religious nation and most people had prayed before, but not everyone. The pattern was a very simple four steps, which will be familiar to most here today.
We begin by addressing our Heavenly Father. Next, we thank Him; then we ask Him for things we need. Finally, we close in the name of Jesus Christ. It’s a pattern I’ve repeated myself from my first memories of prayer both personally, in my family and in church.
Now, I’ve recently been spending some time studying the Lord’s prayer, as found in the sermon on the mount in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. That’s the pattern for prayer that Christ Himself has taught us, and one thing I’ve come to wonder is whether our standard LDS prayer follows the example and pattern he showed.
One of the things that has struck me most is that the first thing Jesus says we should do, after addressing God, is to praise Him – ‘Hallowed be thy name’. (Matthew 6:9) While giving thanks and praise are in some ways related, they’re not the same. In our prayers, we usually give thanks, but do we praise God?
As a consequence, something I’ve been consciously trying to do in my prayers in recent months is to always include praise at the beginning of my prayers, as well as again during other points in my prayer when I feel to, and it has really made a difference to me. Let me give an example.
I’m a stubborn learner when it comes to a great many things, spiritual things included. I decided in my early twenties what I needed to accomplish spiritually in my life and I pursued that. It took the Lord 30 years, while I made mistake after mistake, before He was finally able to get through to me that I’d got it all wrong.
When I pray, I can thank God for his patience and lovingkindness toward me for more than 30 years, or I can say something like the following:
‘Heavenly Father, I can’t believe how patient you’ve been with me over so many years, and how patient you continue to be with me. It’s amazing to me. It’s evidence to me of just how much you love me, and that you would feel this way towards me blows my mind. I’m nothing compared to you. You are omnipotent, omniscient, the God of the whole universe, so far beyond me in glory, knowledge, power, and dominion, and yet you love me. I struggle to comprehend it, and yet there you are. You are so totally amazing. You’re awesome in every sense of the word, and I love you.
When I follow this pattern, I find that my heart expands, my gratitude multiplies, and I feel so much closer to Him than I otherwise would.
In an online group I’m a member of, someone recently said the following:
‘Prayer is when you talk to God about your problems. Praise is when you talk to your problems about God.
‘I expect every one of us is going through difficult trials. It seems common to feel concern for our trials more than peace in Christ, but there’s got to be a better way.
‘Years ago I heard, “Never let life speak louder than truth!”, meaning don’t let the reality of your circumstances govern you more than the reality of God’s word.
‘I felt convicted by this instruction, it revealed something I need to change.
“I’m dealing with a health issue,” but God is the Master Healer. Instead I’ll speak life and God’s healing nature over my life.
“My prayers don’t seem to be reaching heaven,” but Christ says He is always with us. I’m going to pray from a posture that He is here, and His intent is that we are one, as scripture says.
“I messed up again,” but through Christ I can always retain a remission of my sins. As I repent I’m going to thank Him for His plan and rejoice that He was willing to be made sin, for me, so that I could become righteousness in Him.
‘Praise helps. We can tell our trials about our God. We can speak God’s truth with conviction. Then, His truth reigns over our life.
In Psalms we read:
I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and they speak truth unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above the earth. (Psalm 57:9-11)’
I love that this quote finishes with Psalms. If you’re unsure how to offer praises to the Lord, the Psalms are a wonderful place.
Now, among those who are here today, there will be some who struggle to feel these words. If you are one of those, maybe you think that reading or saying something like that would be hollow. Maybe you’re going through some really difficult times that for some reason seem to bar you from feeling the Spirit, from feeling the love and goodness of God. Maybe you’ve been feeling this way for weeks, months, or even years. Please hear me when I say, I understand.
I don’t have any easy answers for you, but I would like to share some of the things that have allowed me to feel of His goodness and love and to feel like praising Him – to sing the song of redeeming love, as Alma states it.
In no particular order:
First, don’t outsource your understanding of our Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ. I love living prophets and apostles and have found great value in so many of the things I’ve heard in General Conference over my life. However, the Brethren are fallible men. Brigham Young taught blood atonement, something which Spencer W Kimball denounced. Presidents Hinckley and Monson designed and encouraged the ‘I’m a Mormon’ campaign, while President Nelson has said our using the word Mormon is a victory for Satan. If we get to the next life and God tells us we got some major things wrong, we can’t use, ‘the prophet said so,’ as an excuse.
I remember a particularly bad time in my life. General Conference came around and the first talk by an apostle appeared to be condemning every single thing about me. I suspect that talk was a great blessing for many people hearing it, but for me it was harmful because of how I was internalising it.
As I have come to know the Lord personally, I have found Him far more gracious, merciful, forgiving, and loving than I had ever imagined. He wants to have a direct relationship with you, where He can teach you directly. While there are many good, righteous, wise and even inspired men and women who can teach us, the scriptures repeatedly warn us not to rely upon the arm of the flesh. God wants us to rely upon Him.
In the passage of scripture sometimes called Nephi’s psalm, he says:
34 O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm.
35 Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. (2 Nephi 4:34-35)
Second, and related to the first, we should continually seek the truth. I once had an interesting online discussion with someone from the US who refused to believe anything other than that our NHS is evil – purely because it is state-funded. I couldn’t say anything to dissuade him: not about our responsibility to care for the poor, or the desire of the vast majority within our democracy … nothing.
The point of sharing this is to show just how much our upbringing and the society in which we live shapes our beliefs. We can have directly opposing beliefs with someone, simply because of where we were born and raised, and these views can be so strong that nothing is able to penetrate them.
Elder Uchtdorf once said:
‘Remember, it was the questions young Joseph asked that opened the door for the restoration of all things. We can block the growth and knowledge our Heavenly Father intends for us. How often has the Holy Spirit tried to tell us something we needed to know but couldn’t get past the massive iron gate of what we thought we already knew?’1
The Book of Mormon frequently warns us of the risks of ‘unbelief’. I have come to understand this word to mean exactly as Elder Uchtdorf described – things that we believe which are false, and which prevent us from believing the truth. And we all have them.
When I began praying for the Lord to remove the veil of my unbelief, I wasn’t really prepared for what was to follow. Things which I had never expected to face, suddenly became central in my study and prayer. Things I had always believed were true were suddenly exposed as falsehoods and deceptions. It has been troubling to deal with the cognitive dissonance that has followed, but my spiritual life is more expansive, fuller, more joyful. I am much closer to both my Father in Heaven and to Jesus Christ than I ever was before. The truth, really does set us free.
Third, discover what repentance truly is.
When we hear the word repentance, do our souls immediately lighten up, filling with joy, or do we shrink – even just a little – because it’s not so much something we associate with joy?
I remember when I was a child, I got into trouble for something or other – I’ve no idea what. But I remember standing on one side of a lemon tree in our back garden and my mum on the other side – a wooden spoon in her hand. She was trying to catch me so she could give me a slap on my backside, but whichever way she went around the tree, I ran the other way. I have no memory of what happened afterwards. According to mum, she was laughing so much when she finally caught me that she couldn’t properly tell me off. Like an angry parent rebuking a child, do we see repentance as this big stick God waves at us? If we tell Him what we’ve done do we somehow think He will chase us with a celestial wooden spoon? Are we filled with shame and dread at the thought of repentance? If so, we have completely missed the point of it.
In truth, repentance is the very opposite – it’s God’s way of helping us to stop feeling bad and to feel that joy Alma spoke about – that desire to sing the song of redeeming love (Alma 5:26). Yes we must admit that we’ve made mistakes and that might be uncomfortable for us at times – even painful. But the point of repentance is that through Christ’s grace we can be forgiven and feel joy. Repentance isn’t about receiving a spiritual slap – it’s about re-orienting ourselves towards or back towards God.
You see, while we do need to repent of specific things when we mess up, repentance isn’t primarily about identifying all the little sins and transgressions we’ve committed and saying sorry for them. When we get to the final judgement, we won’t find God holding a long list of all the things we’ve done wrong with a column next to them indicating whether we repented of them or not. ‘Sorry,’ He says, ‘But you said some mean things to your sister on 4 August 1988 and you never repented of that. You can’t come in.’
I don’t remember if I said any mean things to my sister on that date. It’s possible, and if I did I hope I repented, but that won’t keep me out of heaven. Repentance isn’t primarily about saying sorry (and even meaning it) even if that is often necessary – it’s about changing. It’s about throwing off the natural man. It’s about becoming more Christlike.
That’s why repentance isn’t about self-flagellation. It’s about acknowledging that today the natural man has still held sway at times, and that’s not what I want. I want my nature to be changed. I want to turn more fully towards God. So, I’ll recommit. I’ll once again forsake my sins, forsake that natural man and turn fully to God. As I sincerely do that with my whole heart, I can feel His love pour into me and the process of repentance becomes a joy.
The topic assigned to me today was living with daily thanksgiving, and I don’t know how well I’ve fulfilled that assignment. But I do know that as I truly repent, as I diligently seek the truth no matter what false beliefs I have to give up, and as I develop a personal relationship with the Lord, I feel a far greater desire to praise Him; and my deep gratitude to Him expands dramatically.
Does this magically make my trials, and pains, and depression go away? No. But I feel Him nearer, I feel angels bearing me up.
I love my Heavenly Father. I love my Lord and my Saviour Jesus Christ. They are truly awesome, in every sense of the word.
© Copyright 2025 Jeffrey Collyer
All Things Witness 