Gospel Message Day 18

Prayers - Guidance

It seems silly when I was creating a list of topics that I broke down some into sub-topics, but not others even though I knew I would write on them for a few days. It is silly because now I see that I like to write whatever subtopics come to mind. And they work writing days together instead of days apart. So today I will write on the topic I picked, but then for the next few I'm going to continue on in the vein of prayer. I've already done a post on gratitude prayers. So I'll just go on from there.

I often pray to Heavenly Father for guidance. The guidance can and has been on any and all areas of life--work, schooling, dating, church responsibilities, missionary work, finances. I have prayed to know if I should move. I have prayed to know how to talk to a young man about my feelings. I have prayed to understand what my feelings were for the men I have dated. I have prayed to know what classes to take, if I should have pursued graduate work, and which courses to take each semester. I have prayed to help me know what to speak on in church. I have prayed to help me with a presentation at work. I pray every day for guidance in my daily tasks at work and home.

It's not that I have no mind of my own. Some guidance that I pray for is related to help in knowing which direction would be for the better, particularly when I don't know enough to have made a decision. (For example, I pray that the Lord will keep me safe on the roads, and sometimes the answer guides me on a different path or in a prompting to drive a little slower because the Lord can see all when I can see only the tiniest bit.) Most often I have searched or pondered something out and then approached my Father with the decision I have made to know if that decision will be for my and others' best interest.

I have a constant, unspoken plea that I will always be guided in the right direction. Heavenly Father wants me to put in my work and efforts, but there was one time when I was so down-trodden and overwhelmed that He let me know without a doubt what choice would be best for me--and I hadn't even realized there was a choice to be made! But that was the only time in my life. It wasn't taking away my agency. It was a very powerful urging of what would be the best decision, one that never would have entered my mind if I'd had the emotional capability to fathom it out. And it was still an answer to prayers for guidance that I'd been offering to Him all my life.

But usually I am the master of my own wits and emotions, and I look at what choices and decisions my life presents to me to make. I take what I know and feel, try to learn a bit more in both areas, make what I feel is the best decision, and then go to my eternal dad to see what He thinks. Who on earth who has had a good, loving father did not value their opinion and guidance? So it is with me--with both my earthly father and my heavenly Father. I value His guidance more than any one's and have a great, unshakeable faith in what He answers me regarding those prayers for guidance.