Something Better
Not long ago a friend asked if I would help her hunt for a new home. She’d had a discouraging experience surrounding the probability of a new home and was feeling disheartened about the entire process until we came across a house perched on the side of a cliff that had gorgeous views and other appealing features. “Oh, do you think it’s possible this could be my new home?” she asked with obvious excitement, adding a request: “Can we pray about this, right now? In fact, will you offer the prayer?” I was happy to, and while praying asked that if it did not run counter to the Lord’s will, she might be allowed to live in that home...or something better.
The “something better” part caught her attention. It had never occurred to her to pray for “something better” than she was imagining or conceiving. Yet none of us would wish to limit or restrain the Lord by the smallness of our vision or hopes or petitions. The Prophet Joseph didn’t hesitate to pray in this manner, as he demonstrated at the dinner table one evening. Looking over the food spread before them, he prayed simply, “Lord, we thank Thee for this Johnny cake, and ask Thee to send us something better. Amen.” Before the meal was over, a man came to the door, asked if Joseph was home, and, finding that he was, said, “I have brought you some flour and a ham”
(John A Widtsoe, Joseph Smith--Seeker after Truth, 353).
Something better, just as Joseph asked. That prompts the question, Is it possible that the Lord has blessings in mind for us--blessings and gifts and revelations so much better and knowledge so much greater than we have yet conceived, but blessings we haven’t received because we don’t ask. We don’t petition. We don’t plead. We don’t seek to understand His instructions and promptings as relayed by the Holy Ghost with increasing clarity, frequency, and purity. In other words, we are either distracted by the world or derailed by our unbelief and hard hearts, with the result being the same in either case: We don’t receive what He has for us because we don’t really, consistently, diligently seek after Him.
Sheri Dew
“If Life were Easy, It Wouldn’t be Hard”
Pages 129-130