THREE Things Holding Us Back From Feeling God's Love

General Conference is always an interesting time for me. Do I watch it? Do I not? Do I stay awake and take notes? Do I fall asleep on the couch and “say I watched it?” I’m sure I’m not alone. However I did have the opportunity to go to the second session on Sunday, making it easier to pay attention during the talks.

One of the talks that got my attention, was given by Elder Peter M. Johnson, of the Quorum of the Seventy. In his talk he spoke about three things we as members of the Church need to learn how to get stronger at, in order to be closer to our Heavenly Father. These three things we need to learn are:

• How to overcome the deceptive practices of the adversary
• Learn to minimize distractions that limit our divine potential
• Resist the discouragement that diminishes our capacity to feel the love of our Heavenly Father and his son.

The first thing that I thought about was my relationship with social media. Social media deceives you, believing that everyone in the world is having a better life than you. It deceives you into thinking what is happiness and what is not. This then distracts you into making choices that “limit our divine potential” because we want to chase the “social media clout” and be “happy like everyone else is.” While we chase this desire to be happy using social media as our guide, we our discouraged constantly that we are never going to be enough, therefore not being able to “feel the love of our Heavenly Father and his son.”

If you’re feeling like this, know that you aren’t alone. I’ve made the decision to delete my personal Instagram in 2020. Not because I was told to or because I have to, but I know that the effects of it are not bringing me closer to my Heavenly Father. Similarly, I’d invite you to think about what you can do to become closer to Heavenly Father. Try to identify the things in your life that are, as Elder Johnson stated: deceiving you, distracting you, and discouraging you from feeling the love from Heavenly Father and his son.

To hear this talk in it’s entirety click here: http://bit.ly/2pRAFPn

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