Vain Imagination

Day 2: The Father's Work and Glory Is the Truest Desire of My Heart

Oh God, the Eternal Father, Thou hast blessed me greatly as I turn to Thee and recognize Thy hand in my life in submission. The world teaches, "What do I want? What do I want?" Yet as but a babe, I may think my imagination big. However big it is, whether as big as Steve Jobs wanting to "make a dent in the universe," or as big as The Magic of Thinking Big, or even as big as living The 10X Rule may make it out to be, it is still but a vain imagination without Thee. Christ put it well: whatever I create is "nothing" when done outside of the vine.¹ Oh, it may be a big thing, like a city or a skyscraper,² but those things are still finite, while Thou art infinite.

Here is the deal: Thou knowest the thoughts, intents, desires, and wants of my heart, yet I have spent 30+ years studying the best books to figure out how to get what I think other people will admire about me, that is, to conform to the ways of men, while "Thy work and Thy glory" is to give me the truest desires of my heart,³ as I seek after Thee and Thy ways. And I praise Thee for this insight in my 50s, while still but a babe.

I thank Thee for endowing me with the richest of blessings, a family, that which I have yearned for, especially after I turned my life to Thee in my 19th year. And I thank Thee for the courage to write openly, even as taught by my Master: hold up your light by doing Christ's works, emulating Him, praying always that you may know and do the Father's will.⁴ For I am not ashamed of my Master Jesus Christ, who has lifted me from poverty of mind and is now stretching and turning my heart to my children, which points back to my progenitors.

Father, I thank Thee for not granting me worldly wealth to date, but instead Thou hast purged and pruned me and my heart all these years to prepare me for greater things, things I could not have imagined as an 18-year-old infatuated with MTV and Star Wars.

Oh God, I praise Thee for Thy tender mercies in extending the hand, including delays in my gratification and loss, but according to Thy will and pleasure. Knowing that Thou seest with an all-piercing eye and hast prepared the perfect plan of salvation for me to grow and purge the tares planted in my teenage heart, I am Thine.

My son, you have much yet to learn, and I praise you for following through with your resolve to publish daily. As you move forward with faith, you see the significance of starting your day on My word, and it is being written in your heart to do this work first thing after your scripture study rather than in the late evening. For he who would sift you has a plethora of distractions to keep you from this work.

Press forward therefore with this celestial habit that you may come off conqueror and be one with Christ as He is with Me. To do this, your eye needs to be single to My kingdom come, and He that is the way will unite us. For through His grace you have access to My power, that is, to "deny not the power of God" unto life, salvation, and exaltation.

But this is not all. Becoming one increases not only your intelligence for your sake,⁵ but it opens the door for you to heal and forge the links of your circle of influence in all directions, even an everlasting dominion of increase.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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1. John 15:5. "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." ↩
2. Genesis 11:4, 6. They said, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name." And the Lord said, "Behold, the people is one... and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." ↩
3. Moses 1:39. "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." See also D&C 84:38: "And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father's kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him." ↩
4. 3 Nephi 18:24. "Hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do." D&C 10:5: "Pray always, that you may come off conqueror." 3 Nephi 27:13, 27: He came into the world to do the will of the Father; "what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am." ↩
5. 2 Nephi 32:9. "Ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul." ↩