The pavilion

How about just saying that I'll do this whole general-conference-talk thing once a week? Okay, deal. 

So I just got home from teaching a lesson to a recent convert in our ward. It was AWESOME. Like, seriously. I got to teach a missionary lesson again, bear my testimony, exchange a few of those awkward transitioning-to-your-teaching-companion looks, share scriptures, and just feel the Spirit. It really made me miss the mission field (and it made me sad that I'm moving. Hopefully I'll get this same calling in my next ward!). Anyway, I was perusing general conference talks, and this one by President Eyring caught my eye: "Where Is the Pavilion?" 

He starts off by talking about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, and how he cried out to the Lord, "O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?" (Side note: I've been doing a lot of research about Quincy, Illinois, lately, and how kind the people there were to the Saints when they were kicked out of Missouri . . . during the same time that Joseph Smith was in Liberty Jail. It's an interesting comparison there.)

The Prophet Joseph felt like God was so far away. I know that there are times in life when "divine aid" (as Pres. Eyring calls it) seems completely absent. I think most of my emotional breakdowns (give me a break, I'm a girl) come when I feel that distance between me and the Lord's guiding hand. It's so hard to be confident in the future and the Lord's timetable when it feels like your present is stuck in a rut. 

Voila a pavilion.
Basically the analogy is that God is somehow hiding under this pavilion, and we can't see Him or find Him. But it's really us putting that pavilion there, because the Lord doesn't ever hide from us.

So what is it that creates this pavilion, this block between us and the Lord? Here are a few of the things that Pres. Eyring lists:

-Our own desires, rather than a feeling of "Thy will be done." We may be unwilling to listen or submit to His will and His time. 

-Our insistence on acting according to our own timetable. . . . We can't insist on our timetable when the Lord has His own.

-Fear of man rather than a desire to serve others

I feel like this list could go on and on. Basically anything that takes the Spirit away from us is a pavilion, blocking us from contact with Heavenly Father. But I think that Pres. Eyring really hits the nail on the head here, because when we get caught up in our own desires, we become stubborn and we really don't want to take advice or counsel from anyone, even the Lord. I don't know why we get like that! I think that sometimes that stubbornness comes from fear or just being fed up with our situations, so we think we can take matters into our own hands, so to speak. Why is it that we always somehow think that our plans are going to be better than Heavenly Father's? Silly children.

The good news is that we can get rid of these pavilions. 

How?

-Become more childlike before Him

-Seek to do His work

-Pray for a divine errand

-Extend love and forgiveness

President Eyring talks about all the examples of people in the scriptures who also had to wait on the timetable of the Lord, including Abraham and Sarah:

"Heaven had other purposes to fulfill first. Those purposes included not only building Abraham and Sarah's faith but also teaching them eternal truths that they shared with other on their long, circuitous route to the land prepared for them. The Lord's delays often seem long; some last a lifetime. But they are always calculated to bless. They never need be times of loneliness or sorrow or impatience."

It seems funny that something so painful as waiting on the Lord's timetable is "always calculated to bless." Just goes to show, His thoughts are surely not our thoughts, and our ways are definitely not His ways.

"Although His time is not always our time, we can be sure that the Lord keeps His promises."

So there you go--heard it from an Apostle of the Lord himself.

Anyway. So back to my missionary flash-back night. I'm tying it back in. Maybe. Tonight, I just had the feeling that there was nothing blocking the spirit from being in the room. There was no pavilion, just pure truth being shared. And again, it was awesome. I love those moments when you just know, 100%, that it's true, because you just couldn't have imagined that strong of a witness from the Spirit. "It" being the gospel, the Church. Because if that's true, it means that everything else is also true, including the promises of the Lord. As Elder Holland said, "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until Heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come."