Have you ever heard someone's answering machine and thought that it seemed an eternity long and then decided to leave them an equally long message and you thought that it had been forever and in total it was under five minutes.
Contrast that with long conversations with a friend. They may last for 1, 2, 3+ hours and have long silences and time of understanding, comforting, laughing, etc and it seems like 15-20 minutes.
Related to my last post about asking questions is a thought that struck me; Do I leave God messages? Do I feel that it is painstaking trying to find something to say for more than 15-20 minutes? The truth is that I used to think how in the world can Enos have prayed all night and all day? That is impossible! Truth be known had he left a message probably, but if he was actually praying he probably was about as aware of the passage of time as we are with a friend on the phone.
So what makes the difference. Why are we so vastly different? The Bible Dictionary says that once we realize the true relationship between us and God prayer becomes natural. The reason is because if you had a person who would listen to your problems for hours on end and give sympathy when appropriate and was even able to explain some of the great and not so great things about life and was even able and willing to help you fix or even just understand some of your problems it may be cheaper to just move in rather than rack up an enormous phone bill. However, we do have just such a friend. A Father that loves more than we know and is willing to hear us out and help us up and we pretend like the closest that He ever gets to us is that we can leave an occasional message on his long list of messages that He will get back to when he has time. We need to recognize that divinity that lies within ourselves and realize that He wants so badly to speak with us. Is it really ever a wonder that you hear people say, "Well he never answers my prayers." To quote Elder Bednar, "No kidding." What did you expect. When you treat God like the intergalactic plumber that has billions of other customers and you think that you have no chance of ever getting a turn, how do you expect to see it when your prayers are answered! You think that YOU did it all!
However when we realize that each day holds more blessings than we will ever comprehend that flow from God like a spring then we realize just how much we matter.
Wow Casey, thanks for sharing. I love the analogy. It is true though isn't it? Sometimes we don't really take the time to be close to our Heavenly Father like we should.
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