My Journey's Spiritual Savings Account

I'm reading a book by S. Michael Wilcox called Finding Hope: Where to Look for God's Help.  He speaks of different journeys that we read about in scripture, the children of Israel traveling in the wilderness before entering the promised land, the Jaredites traveling to the American continent, and others.  He makes a comment that I've never thought of before.  He said that when we read of the major crossings/journeys in the scriptures, whether they be over deserts or wilderness or oceans, we should read them with our own lives in mind.  We'll have points in our own journey when we reach a critical crossing.  If we read and study these scripture accounts with our individual journey in mind, we can do so with courage, hope and faith.  This struck a big cord with me.  I view my own life here as a journey filled with lots of excitement, experience, pain, sorrow, etc.  I have a destination in mind, some would call it the promised land, but getting past some of this negative stuff like the pain and sorrow is very tricky sometimes and ultimately just plain hard.  The author of this book also comments that we are given experiences in our lives that will come in handy later.  In other words, when facing a difficult time, we're given a memory of something in our past that can give us hope and courage to get through the present.  As I read that it rang so true.  I have numerous thoughts, experiences, dreams that have happened in the past and at a later date they come to mind.  They seem to be just what is needed to keep me moving forward.  I've learned to write these experiences down as they happen.  Going back to re-read them also gives added insight and strength.  It seems as if I'm depositing these good experiences, into a spiritual savings account.  One that is available to withdraw from when I need it, when times get discouraging or tough.  It is so amazing how the Lord blesses us with this type of tender mercy.

Let me share one of these with you.  A month or so ago I had a dream that I was in a bed.  There was a large piece of metal above me suspended in the air.  It was the exact size of the bed and situated exactly above it.  From that perspective all I could see was the underneath side of the metal above me.  Then my perspective changed and I was looking at myself in this bed from a distance.  I could now see the metal from a different angle.  From this new perspective I could also see that it was raining, hard.  This piece of metal was being hit by fast and powerful rain from above.  The me in the bed was dry and secure underneath.  I woke up and felt impressed to write this down.  As I wrote, I felt that the piece of metal was a shield protecting me and the fast and furious "rain" was more like fiery darts.  (Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.......Ephesians 6:16).  I also felt that this shield has always been with me.  I have since had several times where that visual of myself being protected from the rain/fiery darts has come to mind and given me great strength, even courage.  A deposit was made into my spiritual savings account and there for the using.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to see and walk through the new Gilbert LDS Temple before its dedication.  I started out with a friend to attend an early morning session at the Mesa Temple.  As we got to the Mesa Temple we discovered it was closed for maintenance. We discussed going out for breakfast or driving to the new Gilbert Temple.  We chose the latter.  The sun was just starting to rise.  The temple grounds were incredible.  There were circumstances surrounding this that made it above and beyond the usual open house tours that are currently being offered to the public.  It was an experience that has and will continue to have great impact as I am able to withdraw it as needed from my account.  It was truly an amazing and personal tender mercy.  Let me tell you what this experience has brought to mind so far.  There are always choices to make in life.  Not always between a good thing and bad thing, or right or wrong thing.  Sometimes our choices are between 2 right/good things.  Sometimes when we set out to do good, for all the right reasons, there needs to be a change of plans or a change in course due to circumstances that we can't control and didn't foresee.  We could make several good choices, but when we keep our focus on the temple and the things of God, the blessings are incredible.  And as we travel through this journey called life, if we keep within the walls of righteousness, we can't make a wrong turn.  We can't get lost.  There is beauty and peace at every turn.  An additional lesson learned, the blessings the Lord has in store for us are beyond our imagination.  Sometimes we just need to tell him what we would like.  God knows our hearts, but there are lessons to learn and blessings to gain just from the asking.  

My spiritual savings account is continually full.  The tender mercies are numerous and everywhere, making deposits on a regular basis.  Even though I continually find the need to withdraw from it, the interest gained seems unending.