Increase Your Efforts to Seek Their Help

I wrote recently about this invitation from President Nelson in his final message in general conference: “Our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, stand ready to help you. I urge you to increase your efforts to seek Their help.” I suggested that repentance is one of the ways that we can seek Their help. Related to that is perhaps the most basic way we can increase our efforts to have divine aid in our lives: prayer. But as President Nelson has taught us, the kind of prayer that we need requires great effort. He also said in this conference: “Let Him know through your prayers and your actions that you are serious about overcoming the world.” We show the Lord that we are serious about receiving His help with sincere prayer that goes beyond repeating common phrases. On another occasion President Nelson said this: “Do the spiritual work to seek miracles. Prayerfully ask God to help you exercise that kind of faith. I promise that you can experience for yourself that Jesus Christ ‘giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.’” Prayer is indeed spiritual work and it takes effort and faith to sincerely seek the Lord through prayer. Of the temple he also said this, “And to each of you who has made temple covenants, I plead with you to seek—prayerfully and consistently—to understand temple covenants and ordinances.” He also encouraged us, “Discipline yourself to have time alone and with your loved ones. Open your heart to God in prayer.” Prayer is a matter of the heart that must be deeper that the rushed phrases we tend to offer. During the pandemic he invited us this way: “Let us prayerfully plead for relief from this global pandemic.” Sincere prayer often includes pleading for the Lord’s help. In another talk he gave this invitation: “If you truly love your family and if you desire to be exalted with them throughout eternity, pay the price now—through serious study and fervent prayer—to know these eternal truths and then to abide by them.” We need serious and fervent prayer to gain knowledge and obtain His divine aid.

               As I reviewed some of these talks, I was also struck with how often he referred to his own heartfelt prayers for us. He said, “Again and again, I pray for you to feel Their love for you.” In another talk he related, “I pray daily that you will be protected from the fierce attacks of the adversary and have the strength to push forward through whatever challenges you face.” At the beginning of another general conference he commented, “I have looked forward to this day with great anticipation. I pray for you every day. I have also prayed that this conference will be a time of spiritual rejuvenation for each one of you.” In his first talk in another conference he said this: “You have been on my mind almost constantly during the past six months. I have prayed about you and for you. During recent weeks I have prayed intently that this conference would be a time of revelation and reflection for all who seek those blessings.” He likewise told us during the pandemic, “My heart goes out to each one of you who has suffered these or other losses. I pray constantly that the Lord will comfort you.” Clearly he prays fervently and repeatedly for us, and that is how we should pray to the Father for help in our own lives and for our loved ones. Surely the kind of prayers that the Lord expects of us are those with the same intensity that Enos prayed: “And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.” We typically remember Enos for this single fervent prayer that lasted through the day and through the night, but even more important than that is that he subsequently prayed repeatedly and ardently: “I began to feel a desire for the welfare of my brethren, the Nephites; wherefore, I did pour out my whole soul unto God for them…. I prayed unto him with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites. And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith…. I knowing that the Lord God was able to preserve our records, I cried unto him continually…. I had faith, and I did cry unto God” (Enos 1:4, 9, 11-12, 15-16). To increase our efforts to seek the help of the Lord in our lives we need that kind of sincere and consistent prayer.