Act or Be Acted Upon

It is easy for me to build up a resistance to God.  I start doubting. I start having troubling praying. I no longer feel that peace and calmness I once felt.  I just started reading a book by David A Bednar called 'Increase in Learning Spiritual patterns for obtaining you own answers'. So far it is a good book.  I think it is helping me with some of my resistance.  It is helping me remember why I believed in the first place.  He speaks over and over again about how we are supposed to act and not merely be acted upon.  Just hearing those words I kind of knew what they meant but not well enough to put it into words so I looked up what it means to be acted upon.  The best description I found was to act means to be proactive and to be acted upon means to be reactive. That made a lot of sense to me.

Please bear with me because I have a habit of pointing out seemingly random thoughts and then going back and putting them together.  In the DVD section 11 Elder Bednar answered how a couple can teach their children.  He said it's not a parents job to teach your children but rather teach them to understand. After listening to his entire response I thought it was interesting that he said that a parents job is to teach them to understand because in the next sentence he says that ultimately you can't teach them to understand in the context that the word understand is being used.  In this context to understand is not merely a mental understanding but also an understanding in the heart and only the Holy Ghost can bring this kind of understanding. To me it would have been better for him to say a parents job is to teach their children how to understand.  He says, that "parents need to create a home where the Holy Ghost is present and can be the teacher and confirm the truthfulness of what your children come to know so they will begin to understand."

This I can understand because this is how I came to believe in the LDS church in the first place.  It has never mattered what anyone said about God.  I have always had the ability to read the scriptures and understand what was being said. I haven't always had the ability to understand with my heart and I know that is why I couldn't believe. Elder Bednar is right, nobody can teach you that kind of understand.  It would be easier if they could but life isn't meant to be easy.  I came to understand the truth through the Holy Ghost. It felt true in my heart, but I had to do a lot of seeking to get that answer. It wasn't enough to just read. I had to ask over and over again.  This it made me think of all of the other church's I went to over the years.  Not one of them said know for yourself. I heard a lot of believe what I believe because it is the truth.  I couldn't believe just because someone told me it was the truth. I had to believe it because "I" knew that was true. 

I feel like I am losing my way. I have felt like I am drowning and struggling to stop it. I think reading this book will help me.  I'm not good at doing the basic things like reading the scriptures and praying. I'm usually very good at going to church and going to activities. In short I've been good about being acted upon instead of acting.  I think that is why I'm struggling.  I haven't felt the presence of the Holy Ghost with me. I haven't been able to continue to learn and grow because I've stopped acting.