I was rereading the talks from the general women’s session
in the Ensign and one of the talks
impressing me more than it had at the time when I had heard it. It is Rosemary Wixom’s talk“Discovering the Divinity Within.”
“We come to this earth to nurture
and discover the seeds of divine nature that are within us.”
I’ve known that we have a divine nature because we are
children of God, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we can nurture that divine
nature. Somehow I hadn’t thought
of it that way before.
“Our divine nature has nothing to
do with our personal accomplishments, the status we achieve, the number of
marathons we run, or our popularity and self-esteem. Our divine nature comes
from God. It was established in an existence that preceded our birth and will
continue on into eternity.”
There are things we associate with our identities that are
temporal, not necessarily eternal.
It is good to remember the difference.
I also think personal accomplishments are good when we
practice righteous principles and build righteous character traits, but some
accomplishments are going to be more important eternally than others. There are accomplishments that
the world lauds, but which won’t help us in the eternities. There are also personal accomplishments
that will be passed over, sneered at, or ignored by the world.
I noticed that her talk contained a number of different ways
that we can nurture our divine nature.
"We identify with our divine nature
as we feel and give the love of our Father in Heaven. We have the agency to
nurture it, let it flourish, and help it grow."
Love is clearly part of divine nature.
"We naturally turn to Him in prayer,
and we are eager to read His words and to do His will. We are able to take our
validation vertically from Him, not horizontally from the world around us or
from those on Facebook or Instagram."
The impulse to pray and read the scriptures is from our divine
nature. This reminds me of the
scripture that says the Spirit teaches man to pray. I suppose then that not only the Holy Ghost teaches us to
pray, but also our own divine nature.
That is neat.
"Divine nature breathes into us the
desire to know these eternal truths for ourselves."
So the desire to gain a testimony is from our divine nature
and that will lead us to do all the experimenting upon the word that will help
us come to know every eternal principle.
"Divine nature breathes into us the
desire to serve others. . . .
The divine nature within us ignites
our desire to reach out to others and prompts us to act. . . .
It is through
the whisperings of the Spirit that the divine nature of a doubter, after
gasping for breath, finds the peace to breathe again.
When the
prophet speaks, his words resonate with our divine nature and give us strength
to follow.
Partaking of
the sacrament each week breathes hope into the
divinity within us, and we remember our Savior, Jesus Christ."
I’m getting the feeling that every good thing that we want
to do will be part of our divine nature.
And this makes me realize that of course there will be a war between our
divine nature and our natural man or woman. So we’ll have to make decisions to choose which one we
nurture.
Today, let’s focus on doing those things that will nurture
the divine nature within us.
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