A Nonnegotiable Priority

A couple days ago I mentioned how we recently read in our family part of Elder Richard G. Scott’s final talk in general conference, and I highlighted his message about the importance of scripture study. He also spoke about prayer in that talk and encouraged us in these words: “Choose to converse with your Father in Heaven often. Make time every day to share your thoughts and feelings with Him. Tell Him everything that concerns you. He is interested in the most important as well as the most mundane facets of your life. Share with Him your full range of feelings and experiences.” He urged us to make prayer an essential part of our family life: “Parents, help safeguard your children by arming them morning and night with the power of family prayer. Children are bombarded every day with the evils of lust, greed, pride, and a host of other sinful behaviors. Protect your children from daily worldly influences by fortifying them with the powerful blessings that result from family prayer. Family prayer should be a nonnegotiable priority in your daily life.” It is easy with so many things going on in the morning and night to neglect or forget to pray as a family, and sometimes the task of gathering everyone in the same room for a few minutes feels quite daunting. But if our children needed it then when he gave this talk because of the evils around them, how much more do they need it now! The Lord’s injunction to the Nephites is surely for us today as well: “Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed” (3 Nephi 18:21). We must seek in our families to indeed make prayer together “nonnegotiable” morning and night.  

                Consistent with Elder Scott’s reasoning, the scriptures often suggest that prayer is the solution to withstand temptation. In the same message to the Nephites the Lord said, “Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat” (3 Nephi 18:18). This was the same message He had given in mortality when He told Peter, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Jesus also showed Peter that He believed in this antidote for the powers of Satan when He told His chief apostle, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:32). The Savior also included this in His words teaching us how to pray: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13). Alma similarly taught the people of Ammonihah, “But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear” (Alma 13:28). Amulek likewise said this to the Zoramites, “Yea, and I also exhort you, my brethren, that ye be watchful unto prayer continually, that ye may not be led away by the temptations of the devil, that he may not overpower you” (Alma 34:39). Prayer is and always will be our first line of defense against the adversary, and I know there is power in prayer to protect us from sin and keep us on the covenant path even when the world seeks to lead us astray. In our dispensation the Savior said it this way, “Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work” (Doctrine and Covenants 10:5). We must pray always and help our children do the same so that we can escape the work of the evil one whose mission is to destroy us. As we “continue in prayer and supplication to God daily” we will “not enter into temptation” but triumph over the adversary through the power of Him who “knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor them who are tempted” (Alma 31:10, Doctrine and Covenants 62:1).