Love What the Lord Loves
By Katrina Seamons
@deliberatefamily
Deliberatefamily.com
Get out a paper and make two lists. On the left make a list of “Things you love at home.” Then on the right side of your paper, make a list of “Things you do in your home every day.”
Elder Uchtdorf has taught that in the family, “…’love’ is really spelled ‘t-i-m-e’.” So, as you look at your lists, do the things you love at home match up with how you spend your time? Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. I have learned that if we want a house of God, we need to love what the Lord loves even more than we already do.
What does the Lord love? Here are 3 things the Lord loves that I have been trying to love more in my home:
- Prayer
- Promises
- People
Love Prayer
I have been teaching my kids since they were toddlers how to pray. I have taught them who Heavenly Father is and that they can talk to Him anytime. I try to be consistent in my own prayers and follow the counsel in Nephi that, “the spirit teaches a man that he must pray” (2 Ne 32:8). We learn to love prayer as we spend more time praying, listening, and acting on promptings. We love it when we recognize it is a connection to God. We love prayer when we see the protection it provides over the adversary. “As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God…then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part.” (Bible Dictionary, Prayer). We can love prayer more in our homes by feeling the power of prayer.
Love Promises
Covenants are the opportunity for us to commit ourselves to God. We agree that we want to strive to become like Jesus Christ. He promises to strengthen us with the Holy Ghost, to redeem us with a Savior, and to grant us everything He has. By making covenants, we are covered by the power of the Atonement. Mortality gives us the opportunity to practice this.
Because of the sacred nature of covenants, we may forget to talk or think about them in our daily lives. If they are not discussed in our homes, are we really living up to them? My husband and I have become more vocal about covenants and temple language with our children in recent years. We want to teach them about the covenants made in the temple and remind them of the covenants at baptism. We watch for ways to bring them up in daily conversation so they are a big part of our lives. For example, when my son was feeling anxious about a school assignment, I reminded him of his baptismal covenants. He has been promised that if he will always remember Jesus that the Holy Ghost will help him know what to do and how to do it. These moments can be powerful teaching opportunities to strengthen our testimonies of the power and connection that come through covenants.
Love People
In our homes, it is easy to get swallowed up in schedules and to-do lists. It is easy to wait for people to tell you where to go, where to be, etc. Connection with the people in our homes is the surest way to establish a house of God. Jesus taught, “love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus wasn’t concerned about checklists—he was concerned about people. He taught his disciples to go about doing good and to lift one another. He taught them to worry less about “the rules” and more about the people. Are we teaching our families that same message?
One way we have intentionally tried to be more focused on people in our home is through daily scripture study. Our scripture study used to consist of conversations about how many verses or minutes we would read. I felt like we were missing the real purpose of family scripture study—a time to connect as a family every day. So we decided to stop worrying about minutes or verses and focus more on questions and conversation. Changing our focus to connection with each other has changed the spirit we feel around scripture study. Some days we are in the scriptures for a full 20 minutes. Other days we may only read a verse or two along with meaningful conversations about other topics. Making the people in your home the priority over the schedule will change your home for the better.
As we learn to love prayer, promises, and people more in our homes, we will feel closer to the Lord. Our relationship with Him will grow. The things He loves will strengthen our homes and we will be able to withstand the evils of our day.
(If you want to learn more about loving these 3 things more in your home, please tune into the Deliberate Family Podcast Feb 2022.)
Get Issue 08 delivered straight to your mailbox by ordering an ad-free print or digital copy!