Exhort Them to Pray

I was asked by our bishopric to give a talk today based on President Henry B. Eyring First Presidency Message in Feb of this year.  His message was entitled Exhort Them to Pray.  Here is part of my talk.  

Eight years ago I had a friend who decided to run the Top of Utah marathon and she wanted me to run it with her.  This is something I had always wanted to do so I decided I would do it with her.  I really had no idea what to expect because I had never run a race longer then a 5K which is 3.11 miles.  I was soon to find out that a marathon is much much longer then a 5K.  A marathon is the equivalent of about 8 and half 5K races.   Training for a marathon takes a lot of time and is hard work.  But having a friend to do this with made it much more enjoyable and motivating.  We trained well but on the day of the race I was so nervous.  It was so cool to see how many people were just as crazy as we were running a marathon.  There were people of all ages, sizes, and limitations doing this race.  Everyone did it at there own pace and all of us had the same goal of finishing the race.  Running is a physical sport but just as many thing we do it has an important mental aspect that can affect your performance.  If you are mentally in a good place and have a good attitude by feeding your soul good thoughts, you usually run better.  Along the way there are many things that help support runners to finish the race.  There are first aid stations with medical aid, water stations, port-a-potties, mile markers so you know how much farther you must go, and cheerleaders of friends, families and neighbors who are encouraging you to go just a little farther.  I know without these things I would have never finished the race.  There was a point at about mile 23 I hit a wall and didn’t think I could take one more step.  I was so exhausted and every muscle hurt.  Devin was right there and helped me see that I was so close and I couldn’t give up now.  I had the most incredible feeling crossing the finish line.   I was so glad I didn’t stop.  There are so many life lessons I have learned by training and running a marathon and today I would like to parallel this experience to life.  We all chose to run this race of life.  I think we knew it would be hard but having never experienced it before we really didn’t know how hard it would be.  In this life we are all different and find our own pace.  Heavenly Father knew we would need several things that would support us so we could finish the race of life.  Some of those things he has given us are prayer, scriptures, the Holy Ghost, Our prophet and other church leaders, the church.  The list could go on and on.  Today I’m going to focus on one of these supports that have truly been life changing and have helped me when I thought I couldn’t take one more step in this race and that is Prayer. 

 I’m so grateful for Prayer.  It has been a huge blessing in my life to keep me taking mores steps in the race of life.  I know that life will not always be easy and fun but if I use the tools such as prayer that that Lord has given me it will help me keep an eternal perspective and help me to complete the Race of Life.  Sometimes we will think we can’t go on but as we remember the Lord he will bless us with what we stand in need of so we can carry on.  I pray that we will turn to the Lord in prayer individually, as married couples and as families.  I know the Lord with bless us with more then we could ever imagine.  The Lord loves us.  He wants us to be happy and I know that this church is true church of Jesus Christ.  I know that the Book of Mormon will lead us closer to the Savior.  I know that our current Prophet is President Monson and we should follow his teachings.