This post is a transcript of an episode of my podcast, “Women Who Know.” This episode originally aired on October 26, 2022.
Hey guys! It’s been a crazy week. About 2 weeks ago, we rearranged my kids bedrooms. Originally, we had my 3 oldest sharing one bedroom, and my 1 year old had her own room. She is a really great sleeper and I didn’t want my other 3 kids waking her up and causing her to not sleep, so she had her own room for a long time. We moved her in with my 3 year old, and my 7 and 8 year old into the other bedroom. Well, it didn’t go very well. At first we thought it was just an adjustment period and it would get better, but it got WORSE. It was like dominos, and the final straw was the morning we were supposed to go to 8:30 am church, and my 1 year old woke up at 5:30 a.m. which woke up my 3 year old and then the two of them woke up my 7 year old, and NONE OF THEM went back to sleep. Not everyone made it to church that morning, that’s for sure. And then that afternoon, we moved everyone back to the way it was before. And now we are finally getting sleep again haha.
Anyways, what I want to talk about today is kind of a combination of things. I’m not really sure what the main theme will be, but we will see where we end up haha! I’m really trying to follow the Spirit on this one because I have been struggling to know what to say for this week’s episode. I have a list of ideas in a note on my phone, but none of them felt right this week. So let’s just get started and see where it goes!
rest
President Nelson’s talk from the Sunday morning session of General Conference just a few weeks ago really touched me. The talk is titled, “Overcome the World and Find Rest.” I love that this was our prophet’s message for everyone. The world feels really heavy right now, in so many ways, and what the Savior of this heavy world wanted us to know is that we can find rest in Him. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; … and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The Savior has always been offering us His rest, and He is always offering to help ease our burden.
It is so easy to feel overwhelmed and frightened about the world we are living in today, and the direction in which the world is going. President Nelson says, “…we are presently living in what surely is a most complicated time in the history of the world. The complexities and challenges leave many people feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.” (Nelson, Russell M. (October 2022). “Overcome the World and Find Rest.”) President Nelson even talks about how sometimes we may wish to put on “…pajamas, curl up in a ball, and ask someone to awaken you when the turmoil is over.” I think that’s a pretty accurate description of how we all feel, some days even more so than others. We live in a very mentally taxing time, and it takes a toll. President Nelson seems very aware of that. “But,” he says, “my dear brothers and sisters, so many wonderful things are ahead. In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory,’ He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.”
compensatory power
We have so much reason to hope, so much to look forward to! We don’t need to let the heaviness of the world weigh us down and darken our minds and hearts. We can turn to our Savior, Jesus Christ, to ease the burdens upon our backs. Yes, we live in increasingly troublesome times, but we also live in increasingly wonderful times. In a BYU devotional in 2015, Elder Neil L. Andersen said, “As evil increases in the world, there is a compensatory power for the righteous. As the world slides from its spiritual moorings, the Lord prepares the way for those who seek Him, offering them greater assurance, greater confirmation, and greater confidence in the spiritual direction they are traveling. The gift of the Holy Ghost becomes a brighter light in the emerging twilight.” (Andersen, Neil L. (August 18, 2015). “A Compensatory Spiritual Power for the Righteous.”) A compensatory power for the righteous! Have you seen it or felt it? There are so many good people in this world and so many miracles in our lives – if we just open our eyes to see it. The bad may be getting worse, but the good is getting better and better. There is opposition in all things, so though the evil grows, so too does the good and the light. I don’t know about you, but I really need to work on remembering this.
I keep thinking of the tale of the two wolves that I mentioned a few episodes ago – that we all have a wolf of despair and a wolf of hope inside of us. They are constantly fighting one another, and in the story, a grandson asks his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” And the grandfather answers him saying, “Whichever one you feed.” Are we feeding the wolf of despair, are we letting the world’s darkness drag us down? Or are we feeding the wolf of light and hope, the light that leads us to Jesus Christ? We control whichever wolf we feed. We can choose to feed the goodness of the world – we can CHOOSE to ADD light and goodness to the world and help grow that compensatory power of righteousness! We can be in the world, making it a better place with more light and joy, but we don’t need to be OF the world to do it.
And that’s what President Nelson is saying. He says that the way to overcome the world is to overcome “the temptation to care more about the things of this world than the things of God. It means trusting the doctrine of Christ more than the philosophies of men. It means delighting in truth, denouncing deception, and becoming ‘humble followers of Christ.’ It means choosing to refrain from anything that drives the Spirit away. It means being willing to ‘give away’ even our favorite sins….Overcoming the world means growing to love God and His Beloved Son more than you love anyone or anything else.” Such powerful words from our prophet. From our Savior.
I kind of just want to read the whole talk to you, but I won’t. Haha! I’ll quote it some more, but I think you should go read it after you’re done listening here because it is so powerful and uplifting and exactly what we need to hear right now. I love President Nelson. Okay, anyways, overcoming the world brings us rest from the world. Rest from all the heaviness and darkness. I know that I have tried finding happiness in things of the world – I definitely struggle with a love of material possessions and trying to find happiness in things. And there are lots of other ways that people search for happiness obviously that are not the Lord’s ways either. President Nelson says, “…here is the grand truth: while the world insists that power, possessions, popularity, and pleasures of the flesh bring happiness, they do not! They cannot! What they do produce is nothing but a hollow substitute for the ‘blessed and happy state of those [who] keep the commandments of God.’ The truth is that it is much more exhausting to seek happiness where you can never find it! However, when you yoke yourself to Jesus Christ and do the spiritual work required to overcome the world, He, and He alone, does have the power to lift you above the pull of this world.”
yoke yourself to Jesus
I don’t know what you are going through in your life. Be it physical or mental health problems, family relationship problems, grief from loss of a loved one, financial stresses or unemployment, trauma and abuse, or anything else. Whatever it is, I know that you can find rest. I know that you can feel peace and feel the burden lifted from your shoulders, even if just for a little while. I know that if we overcome the world, as the prophet has advised us to, we can draw closer to the Lord and He will draw closer to us. President Nelson says, “…entering into a covenant relationship with God binds us to Him in a way that makes everything about life easier. Please do not misunderstand me: I did not say that making covenants makes life easy. In fact, expect opposition, because the adversary does not want you to discover the power of Jesus Christ. But yoking yourself with the Savior means you have access to His strength and redeeming power.” We are strengthened and can handle the temptations and adversities of life easier because we are yoked to Jesus Christ, who has overcome the world and all of its pains and sadnesses.
bear up their burdens with ease
One of my favorite sections of scripture is in the Book of Mormon in the book of Mosiah. Alma’s people are being persecuted by Amulon and his people. Amulon has put guards over Alma’s people to kill them if they pray to God. Alma and his people pour out their hearts in prayer, and the Lord answers their prayers. He says to them, “Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage. And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.” The Lord promised his covenant people that He would deliver them from bondage and He would ease their burdens. Notice how it doesn’t say the burden was magically taken away – Amulon didn’t suddenly die or decide to let them all go. It says, “the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease…” The Lord will bear our burdens with us and strengthen us so that they can be easier. About this story, Elder David A. Bednar says, “The challenges and difficulties were not immediately removed from the people. But Alma and his followers were strengthened, and their increased capacity made the burdens lighter. These good people were empowered through the Atonement to act as agents and impact their circumstances. And ‘in the strength of the Lord,’ Alma and his people were directed to safety in the land of Zarahemla.” (Bednar, David A. (April 2014). “Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease.”)
The Savior’s Atonement enables and strengthens us to bear our burdens with ease. The covenants we make with Jesus Christ increase our capacity to handle the trials that life throws at us. Overcoming the world through our covenants with Christ and His Atonement can bring us rest in this life when the world is in commotion. Elder Bednar says, “The unique burdens in each of our lives help us to rely upon the merits, mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah. I testify and promise the Savior will help us to bear up our burdens with ease. As we are yoked with Him through sacred covenants and receive the enabling power of His Atonement in our lives, we increasingly will seek to understand and live according to His will.”
To kind of pull this all together, I just want to reiterate that whatever you are going through in your life, however bogged down you feel, you have access to peace and rest. The Savior’s yoke is easy and His burden is light. He has overcome the world, so we can too. And if we can overcome the world, we can truly rest from its trials and troubles. President Nelson says, “You can overcome the spiritually and emotionally exhausting plagues of the world, including arrogance, pride, anger, immorality, hatred, greed, jealousy, and fear. Despite the distractions and distortions that swirl around us, you can find true rest – meaning relief and peace – even amid your most vexing problems.” It is not easy to overcome the world, but as we work towards that goal, the Lord will bless our efforts. He will strengthen us and increase our capacity and guide us to where we need to be. He loves us infinitely and wants to help us with our burdens. He WANTS to make them light! I love in 3 Nephi 9:13 when the Savior says, “will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” The Savior desperately wants to help us with our trials and our sins. He wants us to come unto Him. He wants us to trust Him and rely on Him for everything. If we overcome the world, we can more fully trust and rely on Him and love Him more fully. We can love Him more than anyone or anything else, like President Nelson has counseled us to do. I have a long way to go in my overcoming the world process, but I am working on it. And as I do, I feel the Lord bear me up and strengthen me that I may handle any and all trials that come my way. I don’t think that the saying “The Lord never gives us anything we can’t handle.” Is true. I think that this world is full of crazy things that we can’t handle on our own, but we can absolutely handle anything with Savior and His Atonement. We need Him desperately, and He desperately wants to help us. If we turn to Him, we can be strengthened and overcome the world. I know that as we follow the prophet’s counsel to do so, our lives will be so blessed. President Nelson reiterated something that President Ezra Taft Benson said, “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds,…lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.” May we all overcome the world and turn our lives over to God – that we Let God Prevail – and see the miracles that unfold.
