Praying as Agents - Notes - Elder Brian L Rawson -

Praying as Agents Excerpt/Notes from the address given by Elder Brian L. Rawson of the Seventy Given to the Calgary, Alberta Foothills Stake during the Priesthood Leadership Session of Stake Conference

19 November 2016

In 2 Nephi 2, Lehi was teaching Jacob just before he died and t aught him some really important things. One of the most important things he t eaches eaches is that in God’s grand design, there are two categories that all creations fall into: things to act; and t hings to be acted upon. We are agents, we are agents unto ourselves. Brethren, we shouted for joy before before we came to this world because we would would have the gift of agency. We are agents. [Holding up a pen] Elder Bednar taught us that we are not objects objects like this pen. Objects are only acted upon. They don’t get to choose. If I were to exercise ex ercise the law of physics and throw this against the wall it will react to the laws of physics; it doesn’t doesn’t get a choice. Brethren we have the ability and the power to act. Many of you already know this, but I would like like to take this one step further; what w hat Elder Bednar taught us has changed my life, and I am quite sure that I am not alone. Elder Bednar used an example of a closing prayer that sounds like this: ‘We are thankful that we were able to come to church. Please bless all those who weren’t here that they will come next week.’ Have you ever heard that prayer? Have you ever said that? Elder Bednar taught that this is how an object prays. We are not going to take action ourselves, we are going to ask God to do everything. We are just going to act as an object while God pours down blessings upon us. That is not the way an agent prays. Then he showed us how how an agent prays: “Father in Heaven, we are are thankful that we could take the Sacrament today. There are many of our brothers and sisters and friends and family that weren’t here. We promise that today, before we go home, we will stop and invite someone that wasn’t here to today to be here next week . Please bless us that we will not all go visit the same person.”  Then he made the following promise twice, o nce to the missionaries and to our stake as well: If you will have in your stake, people say that prayer and pray like an agent, every week, your sacrament meeting attendance will increase 25 percent. So I went around the stake and listened, and never heard that prayer. So we had a bishopric training, concerning an apostle who come to our stake and make us a very specific promise, telling us exactly how to pray. pray. Why weren’ weren’t we doing it? Then I was taught a really important t hing by the spirit that I will share with you today, about praying as agents. As my wife said, when we started doing this in in our own family prayers, “Wow, when someone is praying as an agent, saying amen takes on a whole new life.” life.” What are some examples of what we pray for? (Examples given in meeting listed below)

Good Health Righteous Desires Wayward Family Help to be Kind Guidance Missionaries Wife People you have stewardship over Knowledge and understanding

When the previous stake president was released and I was called, he said that he prayed for his bishops and branch presidents, every day, by name, and he recommended that I did so as well. And I did, for eight and a half years every day, and I’ll tell you revelation comes! If I taught a Sunday School class, eve ry day I would pray for each of my students, those that attend and those that don’t, by name. If I was a leader of the teachers, or the priests, I would pray for them by name, every day. Pray for your own children by name every day. Go home and do this with your family, make this chart and put everything on the left side, write in all of the things that you pray for, and then ask, ‘Am I praying like an agent or an object?’ Brethren what I would like you to do on the other side, is to think of one thing that you can do hat would help to bring about this blessing. For example, what is one thing that you could do to bring about good health? Exercise. So here is how an agent, I believe would pray: ‘Father in Heaven I desire to have good health so I can serve. I promise that today I will exercise.’  Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, the more specific and time bound that this promise is, the more faith is required and the greater the faith will be granted to you.

I prayed every day for decades for missionary experiences, and I had very, very few. In six and half years I had an experience where I was convicted. After a high council meeting I was distraught, we had missionaries in our stake that were not teaching at all, for weeks at a time. How can we not have people for our missionaries to teach? So we met with the high council and counseled with them and asked what should we do? And we had great input, I really felt that it was a good meeting. And then I asked someone for the prayer, and while he was praying, the Lord rebuked me. President Eyring did some training recently and said ‘If you haven’t felt rebuked by the Lord recently, you ar en’t praying hard enough!’ That made me feel a little bit better. Very clearly in my mind, the question came: ‘Brian, what are you doing?’ And I realized that all I was doing was praying for experiences. And then an explanation: ‘As you go, so will go your stake.’ And this was for me, it wasn’t for my stake, it’s not for you it was for me. I don’t know if it applies to you or not. Very clearly the instruction continued: ‘Invite someone to come to church every week, pray every day that you will know who to invite, and promise that you will invite whoever you are inspired to invite.’

The prayer ended, and I asked the high council to stop and stay there and not leave because I had to commit to them publicly what I just learned, and I told them. ‘From now on, I promise that I will invite someone to church every week, and I promise that I will pray every single day “Please Heavenly Father help me to know who to invite to church this week, and I promise I will invite whoever you tell me .”’ Now brethren, my faith was not very strong at that point regarding to this, and the first two or three weeks was really hard. I was afraid that He might inspire me to invite the mayor of Wichita, or someone like that. But I will tell you that I have kept that commitment. Two and a half years ago I realized that if the Lord’s work is being hastened, I needed to pace my own commitment as well, so I decided that I would invite at least 2 people to church. Not just non-members; I have invited lots of less active members. I have invited by voice mail, by email, by Facebook message, by text message, face to face, I have invited some people more than once; there are a few people that have invited maybe multiple times. In six and a half years, I have invited hundreds of people to church. Most haven’t come, but some have. In Clayton Christensen’s book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries, (if you haven’t read this book, I invite you to), he said ‘we succeed when we invite.’ Brethren that is absolutely true. If we think that we are only succeeding when people get baptised or when people come, we don’t understand the doctrine of agency. We succeed when we invite, they succeed when they heed the invitation, but we succeed when we invite. I am a little reluctant to tell you the results of this effort, as I said hundreds though I didn’t keep track of that until two and a half years ago when Elder Don D. Deshler asked me to keep track of who I w as inviting and what resulted, so I did. To the best of my knowledge in those two and a half years there was about 30 people who have come back into activity, there was 12 that were baptised, and we’ll see another three. There were several who received the Melchizedek Priesthood and have been endowed. One of the problems I think we have is that we think that we need to have these amazing, miraculous experiences when we invite. Brethren you will change when you begin to pray like an agent and you promise what you will do to make t hese things come about. When you say, please bless the missionaries that’s nice, but when you say ‘Please bless the missionaries, I promise that I will invite somebody who hasn’t been to church recently to come back and meet with the missionaries, and I will do it this week.’  Now you are praying like an agent, and then when you get up off your knees and act like an agent, miracles happen. ‘Please bless my wife that she will be happy.’ What is one thing that you can do to help bring that about? ‘I promise that today I will get her flowers.’ Anything else that you can think of? I’ll do the dishes. You might think this is crazy but trust me it changes everything. ‘Heavenly Father, bless my wife that she will know that I love her, I promise to do the dishes today.’  How about you younger parents who have children at home? Do you have family prayer? Do you pray like agents or objects? It is very different when you say ‘Heavenly Father, please bless us that we will have peace in our home, I promise that I will not raise my voice. I promise that I will not yell.’  ‘Heavenly Father please bless us to have the spirit in our home, I promise that we will have scripture study tonight, and that we will have family prayer every day.’ 

What happens when you promise in your prayer out loud and your kids are listening that you won’t yell at them and then 3 hours later you yell at them? They call you out on that don’t they? Elder Bednar promised the missionaries in our stake: ‘Once you understand that you are an agent and not an object, everything changes forever.’