I need your opinion…

What parts from his speech are most meaningful to you MM?

For example, he said

For some, hearing God’s voice seems intuitive and obvious. Some seem to be born with a testimony of the gospel and a sensitivity to spiritual things. For others, belief come slowly, and the may feel difficult or frustrating.

He also said:

We Are Seekers

Please understand that this is not a process of once and done.

It is not a process of minutes or hours. It may not be a process of months or even years.

It is the process of a lifetime.

We are seekers, you and I.

We are light gatherers.

We are on this lifelong mission—to gather light and bear it to the world—that will lead us through the joys and trials of life.

He also said:

I don’t know why the answers to our prayers are delayed at times. Perhaps the Lord wants us to prove to Him—or to ourselves—just how sincerely we want the truth. Maybe the effort He requires is how we learn to value the truth. Maybe that is how we prepare ourselves to receive and accept the truth. Or simply, maybe it is God’s way of helping us to learn how to hear the music.

But, my dear friends, one thing I do know: the process of communication between mortals and heaven is not broken. It is real. It is available to you and me!

If we attune our hearts, eyes, and ears to recognize the Spirit—if we strive to walk in the way of light—we will surely find what we seek. We will surely learn how to hear the music!

However, we must understand that God is not a vending machine. Just because we put a prayer request into the slot, that does not mean an answer will appear immediately at our feet.

No, communing with the Infinite, communing with the Divine, takes time. And it takes commitment.

Casual prayers do not yield sublime answers.

In this life it is our great opportunity to struggle, to fight, and, yes, to fail occasionally in our pursuit of the divine. It is all part of the process designed to refine our character and perfect our spirits.

When we strive with heart and mind to ­follow the Savior and incorporate His teachings into our daily lives, we receive favor from heaven. The Lord has promised that if we walk uprightly, “search diligently, pray always, and be believing, . . . all things shall work together for [our] good.”13

What a precious promise.

Again he said:

The Fine Print

There is, however, some fine print we need to be aware of.

First, this light will come in God’s time, not ours.

Second, it will come in God’s way—a way we might not expect or even want.

Third, it comes as we believe.

Now some of you might say, “In order to have greater belief in God, I have to believe? But that is exactly my problem. What if I can’t believe?”

The answer is: Then hope. And desire to believe. That is enough to start.

To desire to believe does not mean to pretend. It means to open your heart to the possibility of spiritual things, to lay aside skepticism and cynicism.

If you can simply want to believe, that can start the seed of faith growing within your heart.10

Eventually that seed will grow until you can begin to believe. Those first glimpses of belief lead to faith. And your faith will grow stronger day by day until it shines bright within you.

The feel of his talk is more understanding, more compassion, more empathy.

The usual talk by a general authority seems to be “everybody on the covenant path”.

Maybe I’m reading too much into his words. I’ve done that before with other GA’s in the past.

I do recall the talk and I like it. I immediately related to it because I felt like I could hear the music. To Nibbler’s point, I recognize that others aren’t having the same experience I am having but I I also feel like before my faith crisis and transition I couldn’t hear the music either. I am sure there are other people who hear as I do, and there are others who likely hear something a little differently than I do (perhaps a different tune). And I think there are others who don’t hear it. I think sometimes that’s because they aren’t listening (for whatever reason) or because they just can’t hear at it at that moment. A big part of my own faith crisis was the feeling that the heavens were closed, that any prayers just bounced off the ceiling., and God just simply was giving me the silent treatment. While I continue to believe all of this to be the case and will “testify” of it to the doubters who are actually believers* (there’s some irony there), I also recognize there probably was music there during that time that I was not hearing (and maybe that was very soft music). This is where that “fine print” section of the talk comes into play for me, and then DFU goes on to talk about hope – and hope is part of what I hear in the music. I also like DFU’s reference to seekers, because I have also long considered myself to be a seeker, and I believe Joseph Smith was a seeker. Sometimes being a seeker means looking in places others are not looking, and I have learned finding (the object of seeking) rarely happens in church (although this may be different for newer or younger members). I don’t think we learn much from parrots, and the parrots can actually drown out the music.

*In other words, people who don’t believe God doesn’t or won’t speak.

Going back to my Introduction & my faith crisis, up to that point I thought that the way to get answers to my prayers was through the way

I got my answer to join the church. Like JS did, pick a place to pray (the sacred grove), pray on your knees & God would appear & give you

the answer you want or deserve. When I got my FC, I prayed & nothing happened. I went to my Bishop for answers, prayed & nothing happened.

In fact, when I went to my Bishop, it seemed like he was embarrassed, uncomfortable & would rather be somewhere else. So, I went home,

prayed some more, then everything seems to get very black & depressing. Church didn’t seem to improve anything.

Time did improve things.

This talk & others like it, give me hope. That’s a good thing.

Since I’ve been back & attending on a regular basis, I have been reading the scriptures (& other books) to get a better insight into this life.

I have discovered the parables again. This talk by Elder Uchtdorf is in a way, a parable. There are many ways to get inspiration & be influenced positively by God (or HG). Many are outside of the church. Along the way, I wonder how many I have missed.

Attached is a video of Joshua Bell at that subway station. Very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw&t=23s

I hope that by saying “I wonder how many I have missed” you aren’t beating yourself up. There are infinite possibilities. Just from books alone, there are countless passages that God could use to touch your mind and heart. You could spend your every waking moment reading.

I think it is wisdom to try to be open to spiritual experiences as you go about your life. You have already had spiritual experiences and you can have more. I think this is especially true if they don’t have to convey specific messages or revelation. Just witnessing the sunset with a sense of wonder and awe can be a spiritual experience. I try to be open to that.

No, I agree with what you’re saying Roy. My only point is that I have on occasion been so wrapped up with the emotion of anger, I have

missed any inspiration that may have come my way. It was great to hear the compassion in Elder Uchtdorf’s talk.

I’ve been asked to give a sacrament talk in church.

I’m going to use this talk by Elder Uchtdorf as the basis for what I want to say.

The parts of his talk that I like the most are:

For some, hearing God’s voice seems intuitive and obvious. Some seem to be born with a testimony of the gospel and a sensitivity to spiritual things. For others, belief comes slowly, and the process may feel difficult or frustrating.

There is, however, some fine print we need to be aware of.

First, this light will come in God’s time, not ours.

Second, it will come in God’s way–a way we might not expect or even want.

Third, it comes as we believe.

Please understand that this is not a process of once and done. It is not a process of minutes or hours. It may not be process of months or even years. It is the process of a lifetime. We are seekers, you and I. We are light gatherers. We are on this lifelong mission–to gather light and bear it to the world–that will lead us through the joys and trials of life.

We must understand that God is not a vending machine. Joust because we put a prayer request into the slot, that does not mean an answer will appear immediately at our feet.

If God answered the prayers only of the perfectly obedient, He would have to shut down heaven’s entire prayer-answering department