Talk - Relationship with Heavenly Father

Katelin Roberts is a young woman in my ward and she gave this awesome Sacrament Meeting talk at church today. I was so impressed. It was such a great talk that even my kids listened attentively (I think they perked up with the In-N-Out Burger analogy). Hope you enjoy the talk too.

Friends are great most of the time. Hang outs on the weekends, after school vent sessions, and laughing so hard you cry as you try to ride a tandem bike down the street. However, sometimes they steal your babysitting jobs, they make plans with other friends, or they won’t pick up their phone during that one time of peril that you are in desperate need of a “spill your guts session”.
Heavenly Father has no busy signal. He is always on the other side and he anxiously awaits our call for His help and guidance. However, we must build that relationship. We must build it like, well like we might build a burger.

I don’t know if you know this…but I work at In-N-Out Burger, working hard every day to slowly clog your arteries.

At IN-N-OUT, we are trained using acronym as we learn to put our burgers tog ether. It goes in an SLTO.

S for the spread, a real calorie spike.
L for the Lettuce, green and leafy.
T for the Tomato, ripe and red.
and O for the beloved Bremuda onion.

That same acronym can be used to build a relationship with our Heavenly Father.

We’ll start with the S, the spread, or in this case the scriptures. The scriptures were given to us as the Lord’s word. By reading them we are given the chance to apply principles of the gospel to our lives. We will learn of Him, and in turn, become closer to Him.

Next is the T. Not the tomato, but the time. We need to be consistent in taking time out for the Lord; show Him that we are on His side, to show Him that we need Him in our lives. When we let Him in, we’re saying that we are ready and willing to be instruments in His hands. When we show him our efforts, He’ll show us His. Not only do we need to devote the time, we need to also remember to be patient.

Lettuce, and Longing comes next in the SLTO way. In order for any of this to work, we must have the desire to have a relationship with our Heavenly father.

Dan 10:12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.

He knows the true longings of our hearts and He waits to reciprocate them.

Going through the motions is only half of what needs to be done. Without the will in your heart, your other efforts will most likely trickle away anyways because you will no longer want to put in the effort.

O is for Opening our hearts and minds. We should remember to keep an open heart and mind for the answers and instructions the Lord will surely pass on. Obeying Him will bring us closer to Him and will allow Him to show us what important friends we are to Him. Knowing this, we should to make sure that we aren’t the ones putting out a busy signal. We are instruments and He’ll play us if we’re tuned.

The meat comes last, after all of the other preparation is done. After we’ve done all we can do, the Lord will respond. He will give us an answer or will in some way manifest his love to us.
Now we have this beautiful Relationship. We can talk to our Heavenly Father about anything and we know of His power. But if we just let it sit there, things might begin to slide, and come apart. To keep it from happening, we can wrap it. Wrap it firmly to keep all of the good things inside and to keep the relationship strong.

I, as many other youth did this summer, attended a session of EFY. For those of you that don’t know, EFY stands for Especially for Youth and it is a church summer camp for youth older than 14.

During that week, everyone is placed into a “spiritual bubble” if you will. We are separated from the world as we learn what we can do to grow closer to our Heavenly Father.

However, the purpose of EFY isn’t to be able to say, “Wow, I had indescribable experiences that week.”

The idea is to be able to say, “Wow! I have indescribable experiences EVERYDAY because of the things that I learned at EFY!”

They stressed daily the idea of “taking it home” because the things we learn are only useful if we continue to use them.

Just because we receive an answer or feel His love a few times doesn’t mean that the relationship has hit the climax. The relationship we have with our Father in Heaven is eternal we need to continue to live that way and improve daily.

TESTIMONY.