This is based on the talk by Henry B. Eyring, “Finding Personal Peace
In John 14:27 the Savior Jesus Christ said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Jesus said this to His disciples after teaching them about the Holy Ghost. Peace, especially personal peace can be a hard thing to find and at times an even harder thing to hold on to.
The disciples of Christ needed to learn where to look not only for guidance after the Savior was no longer physically with them but also for peace. The peace they must have felt walking by His side and learning at His feet.
Because of the gift of the Holy Ghost we to can find personal peace in our lives, whatever circumstances we are in.
President Eyring gave us some of the Savior’s words. They are as follows:
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
“And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
“Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye live also.”
“At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”
“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
“Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
“He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.”
“These things I have spoken unto you, being yet present with you.”
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
There is a lot packed into those words. President Eyring speaks of five truths he learned from the Savior’s words.
“First, the gift of peace is given after we have the faith to keep His commandments. For those who are covenant member’s of the Lord’s church, obedience is what we have already promised to do.”
“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
Personal peace is found in loving the Lord. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments. This is how we show our love to Him, and by so doing we receive personal peace and come to know Him better. A powerful spiritual cycle is formed and by its rotations we grow and become more like the Savior.
Peace is found after faith is exercised, not before. Faith, for me at least, is often stepping out into the dark and trusting the Lord that I will either land on solid ground or be taught how to fly. Some of my hardest times in my life I refer to as times when my wings grew.
However even amidst the chaos of the storms that life brings, in turning to my Savior I found comfort in the knowledge that what I was being asked was right and for my good. Although what is asked seems beyond my abilities, trusting my Savior and acting on that trust by doing as I have been asked to do brings me personal peace, both while doing it and after I have been obedient.
Obedience is not just a personal choice, but for those who have made covenants in the temple it is a part of what we have covenanted to do. We have promised by covenant to follow Him, to Follow the Holy Ghost and the promptings, inspiration, and personal revelation that we are given, and that we receive. By so doing we grow and receive a lasting peace in our lives because of the continual presence in our lives of the Holy Ghost and the Savior Jesus Christ.
This leads into President Eyring’s Second truth; “…the Holy Ghost will come and abide with us. The Lord says that as we continue to be faithful, the Holy Ghost will dwell in us. That is the promise in the sacramental prayer that the Spirit will be our companion and that we will feel, in our hearts and minds His comfort.”
That is the promise and is also the powerful spiritual cycle that I spoke of before. It is also what Jesus said: “ If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
I love the imagery here, and the word abode.Our abode is our home. Loving Jesus, showing that love, is not only returned but magnified by the love of the Father and they will both make their abode with us. They will dwell with us and we will feel their love continually because they dwell with us and our home is theirs.This makes my spirit sing and my soul rejoice. That my home is with them and their home is with me.
“…we will feel, in our hearts and minds His comfort.” This is something that I have experienced. There have been times in my life that I should have been panicked at the circumstances I was in but I wasn’t. I was calm and at peace with what was happening. I knew I would be taken care of because I was in the Lord’s hands and care. Times in my life when my mind raced and seemed to be on a marathon that I did not want to run. In turning to the Lord, I received a calming of my thoughts and the ability to focus them where they were needed.
Peace is found in small moments and in tumultuous times that these experiences occur. Look for them and I promise you will find them in your own life.
President Eyring’s third lesson is that, “the Savior promises that as we keep our covenants, we can feel the love of the Father and the Son for each other and for us. We can feel Their closeness in our mortal lives, just as we will when we are blessed to be with them forever.”
This is a warm hug of a feeling to me. It encircles me and comforts my soul. It gives me the courage to act and the strength to endure. It heals my broken heart and mends the wounds within my soul. Their love has the power to make me whole, even if it is a piece at a time.
Seeking to know the love that our Father and His Son have for us is seeking to know them, to develop a deeper relationship with them. In doing so not only are we able to feel the love they have for us and each other but we also come to understand who we are and who we are meant to become. It is the journey through mortality that heals the wounds we receive along the way. That journey is one of returning back to our heavenly home.
The covenants we make strengthen our relationship with Jesus Christ. Those covenants show us the boundaries we need to respect while we use our agency. They give us access to the power of heaven through the atonement of Jesus Christ. That power gives us the ability to change, grow and become more than we are and oftentimes more than we think we can become.
President Eyring’s fourth lesson is, “keeping the Lord’s commandments requires more than obedience. We are to love God with all our heart, might, mind, and soul. Those who do not love Him do not keep His commandments. And so they will not have the gift of peace in this life and in the world to come.”
In Matthew 22:37 Jesus says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
What does loving God really look like?
In Greek the word heart means your thoughts and emotions. So we are to love God with all of our thoughts and all our emotions.
In Greek the word soul means spirit and breathe. So we are to love God with all of our spirit and with every breath.
In Greek the word mind means deep thoughts, imaginations, and understandings. So we are to love God with all of our deep thoughts, all of our imaginings, and all of our understandings.
If we know God for who He really is, He should thrill our thoughts, capture our emotions, deepen our understanding, and light our imaginations.
Do I love God that way? With every part of me? Do I love Him with my thoughts, my emotions, my spirit, my breath, my deep thoughts, my imagination, and my understanding?
Love is a verb. It is an action and a choice. It is our choice to love God wholly and with everything that we are. It is our choice to think of Him, to feel His love for us, to deepen our thoughts and understanding of who He is and what our relationship to Him is.
Our Father and Savior Jesus Christ are there. As we choose to love them with all of our heart, soul, and mind they will direct our thoughts, engage our emotions, thrill our spirit, help us find gratitude in every breath, light our imaginations, and deepen and extend our understanding. The choice is ours. They will bring peace to our lives and help us to endure our journey through mortality.
President Eyring’s fifth lesson is, “it is clear that the Lord loved us enough to pay the price of sin so that we can — through our faith in Him and our repentance, through the effects of His Atonement —- have the gift of the peace that “passeth all understanding” in this life and with Him eternally.”
We can find peace from sin through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Through repentance we can change and the ability to change comes through the atonement. Changing our path, the direction of our life, the choices that we are making to be in alignment with the will of the Father and the doctrine of Christ brings personal peace.
“Some of you, perhaps many, are not feeling the peace the Lord promised. You may have prayed for personal peace and spiritual comfort. Yet you may feel that the heavens are silent to your pleadings for peace.
There is an enemy of your soul who does not want you and those you love to find peace. He cannot enjoy it. He works to prevent you from even wanting to find the peace the Savior and our Heavenly Father desire you to have.
Satan’s efforts to sow hatred and contention all around us seem to be increasing.”
Sometimes I have to work harder than it seems like I should to find peace. Stress, anxiety, fear, worry, contention, or simply complaining can block the personal peace that I seek to have, that my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ offer with open arms.
I can’t eliminate all of those completely from my life. I wish I could. Even if I could eliminate them from myself there will always be other people who bring them into my life. So I work to keep my stress levels low. Decrease the anxiety, fear and worry I allow within myself. I diligently work to eliminate contention from my heart and from my behavior. I choose not to complain about things.
I live in a fallen world where Satan has influence and seeks to sway the hearts and minds of the children of God who dwell here. I cannot change that fact. I can only do what is within my power to limit Satan’s influence in my life. I can make my home a sanctuary away from the strife and chaos of the world. I can make and live by the covenants I made with God.
Peace may be hard at times to find. It may be brief and fleeting. But it is there. In the midst of the waves and winds Jesus Christ is there with us. He is the master of wind and wave and like the seas He can calm the storms that rage within our souls and our lives. What He does not calm He will walk through with us. We will not be left alone and through Him we can find peace.
Finding personal peace means that we can face the future with optimism and joy because we know that we face it with the Savior Jesus Christ as our traveling companion. We are told in D&C 84:88, “…for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you to bear you up.”
“…and mine angels round about you to bear you up.” We are some of those angels. The angels that are round about us come from both sides of the veil. In heeding President Nelson’s call to be peacemakers we become someone else’s angel. In ministering to those around us we become the angel that someone needs in their life at that moment.
This does not mean that we do not receive help from the other side of the veil. We are told in 2 Kings 6: 16 -17 by Elisha, “…Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and , behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
We too can ask to have our eyes opened, to see with our eyes and feel with our hearts the heavenly help that surrounds us on a daily basis. I often pray in my morning prayers that my family be surrounded by angels, that they are protected and ministered to. I know that that prayer is answered daily. We have the help and aid of the hosts of heaven. All we need to do is open our eyes.
President Russell M. Nelson has said, “I give you my assurance that regardless of the world’s condition and your personal circumstances, you can face the future with optimism and joy.”
We can do this because of our Savior Jesus Christ and the personal peace we can have through our personal relationship with Him. I testify to you that I know my Savior lives. I know He loves each and every one of you. He knows you, and He can and will bring you the peace you seek in your life.
