Monday, January 12, 2009

Room for the Savior

Last night my husband and I watched bits and pieces of the CES Fireside given by President Monson. Of the parts that I actually got to listen to a line that he said stuck out to me. I don't think I have it written in his exact words but it was something along these lines,

To find the Savior we must make room for Him in our lives.



I pondered this last night as I began to read my scriptures and was reminded of a few verses. As you read these verses keep in mind that place and room can be used synonymously to mean "an area or space intended for something" and in this case that intention is not fulfilled:

Mosiah 2:36-37 - "...if ye should transgress...ye do withdraw yourselves from the Spirit of the Lord, that it may have no place in you to guide you in wisdom’s paths...I say unto you, that the man that doeth this, the same cometh out in open rebellion against God; therefore he listeth to obey the evil spirit, and becometh an enemy to all righteousness; therefore, the Lord has no place in him, for he dwelleth not in unholy temples. "

When we trangress and withdraw ourselves from the Spirit there is no place or no room for the Spirit within us. When we listeth to obey the evil spirit the Lord cannot find any place or room because we are unholy. Do we make room within ourselves for the Spirit of the Lord to dwell?

When we fill ourselves full of the Spirit of God there is no room for Satan. The verse below is speaking of what is to come during the Millenium but if we were to truly leave no room for Satan he would be bound by the way we live our lives. He would have no place in our hearts.

Doctrine & Covenants 45:55 "And Satan shall be bound, that he shall have no place in the hearts of the children of men.

We not only need to find room within our hearts and within ourselves, we need to find room for the Savior in our daily lives. We need to find room for Him in our hectic schedules. We need to find room for Him each and every day.



I found a wonderful talk by President Monson, titled "The Search for Jesus" that has many wonderful, thought provoking, insights on this topic:

"Before we can successfully undertake a personal search for Jesus, we must first prepare time for him in our lives and room for him in our hearts. In these busy days there are many who have time for golf, time for shopping, time for work, time for play—but no time for Christ.

Lovely homes dot the land and provide rooms for eating, rooms for sleeping, playrooms, sewing rooms, television rooms, but no room for Christ.

Do we get a pang of conscience as we recall his own words: “The foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matt. 8:20.) Or do we flush with embarrassment when we remember, “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7.) No room. No room. No room. Ever has it been."

Let us make more room for the Savior in our lives. Let us make room for Him in our hearts and in our homes. Let us make a place in our hearts with the intention to fill it with the Spirit of God. Let us find more time to remember the Savior, to ponder His teachings, to read the scriptures, to pray, to serve, to do the things of God. Let us truly find the Savior as we make room for Him in our lives and make a place for Him in our hearts.

4 comments:

Janis said...

Thank you so much for your wonderful and uplifting blog. You have so thoughtfully organized this and put this together to make it so user friendly and inspiring. I just wanted to say Thank you because I don't think you have enough comments on your blog thanking you for all your wonderful insights and time you must devote to this blog.

This current post is a great reminder for everyone. Life with children get's busy, but we should never be too busy to put the Savior in our life daily.

Thanks for the reminder.

Stephanie said...

I think it was in the December Ensign that Pres. Monson talked about the "no room in the inn" being the first of many rejections for the Savior, and that led me to have many of the thoughts you've shared here, but better than I thought them in the first place. Thanks, good stuff.

Pokemon said...

Thanks for both of your comments. They always make my day.

Valerie said...

Thanks for the link to the fireside. I can't wait to listen to it. And thank you for all your thoughts on it. It's a great post on your inspiring blog!