An "Ah-ha!" Moment

This last fast Sunday I had decided to fast for something very important to me. It seems as though I pray and fast for this often and it never happens. This time as I was beginning my fast with a prayer the night before something unusual occurred.

First, I opened up my scriptures to where I left off. Doctrine and Covenants Section 14.  Right away the words on the page began to speak to me. It's as if God was showing me what I needed to know and pray for, before I prayed. He was giving me a nudge.

The verses that stood out most were:

5 Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you.  

6 Seek to bring forth and establish my Zion. Keep my commandments in all things.

7 And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.

8 And it shall come to pass, that if you shall ask the Father in my name, in faith beleicving, you shall receive the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance, that you may stand as a witness of the things of which you shall both hear and see, and also that you may declare repentance unto this generation.   

 9 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who created the heavens and the earth, a light which cannot be hid in darkness;

 10 Wherefore, I must bring forth the fulness of my gospel from the Gentiles unto the house of Israel.

Here is section 14 in it's entirety http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/14?lang=eng

The "Ah-ha!" moment arrived. I was spending too much time during the week focusing on things that were not in any way building the kingdom of God. He wants me to ask and promises to receive but in return I need to give back. Was I helping bring souls to Christ? Was I sharing the message of repentance? Was helping build Zion my ultimate goal at the end of the day?

Sharing the gospel and building the kingdom is the Lord's priority. What if I were to match my priorities with the Lord's? It would change everything - the way I pray, what I pray about, the way I treat others, love others etc. It was amazing!

I then knelt to pray and begin my fast. I promised Heavenly Father that I would change my priorities and do all that I could to build His kingdom. I told Him that He could count on me. I asked Him that if I were to do these things, if He in return would bless me with what I was asking for.

Over the next couple of days I began to have vivid dreams with important meanings. I wrote down everything so that I could log my experience and see the Lord answering my prayers in real time. He answered my prayer in dreams, then people began to reach out to me with the answers I was praying for. God was sending me answers through other people. It was amazing.

As this was happening, I continued to do my part to build the kingdom. I spent all of my spare time reaching out to people I hadn't talked to in a while, looking for people to genuinely compliment and serve, spending time reading scriptures with my children and teaching them about the gospel. I got up earlier to pray, clean my house and read scriptures. I turned my home into a more beautiful and sacred place to be. Suddenly life was more cheerful! Everything was brighter and I could feel the Lord smiling down on me.

If this is what life is like when I change my daily focus to building Zion, then I want to do all that I can to keep that my focus. I could feel the Lord blessing me as I aligned my priorities with His.