3 Nephi 13

Now, I want you to give to the poor—another theme of King Benjamin, of course, who was one of my idols. (I’m just joking. Sort of.) But don’t give to stilt up your own reputation. Don’t hold or attend open houses or receptions honoring your philanthropy. Or compete at church for who can raise the most money for this or that “cause.” Instead, be as secret as you can be about what you give, how much, and to whom. Because God is secret, as you know. He gives all kinds of gifts without making a big show of it. (It’s only the recipients who do.) Stealthy giving leads to stealthy blessing back from the giver of all.

Similarly, do pray but don’t make a show of it. You have your prophets and you have your evangelists. The former don’t like to pray in public—with a few exceptions, like Nephi—but the latter love to. They do it in the assembly halls and graduation ceremonies or in lesser venues, like street corners and alleys. But it’s all the same. Just show. And in doing so they become the answer to their own prayers.

I recommend truly secret prayers. No one looking but God, who is always looking, by the way.

Beyond venue, there’s content. When you pray, don’t use formulas like pagans do. Don’t think that, in sacred locution, more speech gets more attention. God doesn’t need your mouth. He hears on a vastly different plane. He’s written down your prayers before you speak them. And even planned his response, often a cagey and inscrutable one. But that’s how he answers his own prayers.

Here’s a sample of good prayer technique. (Don’t use this verbatim, but only as a template.):

Father, you’re in heaven and I understand the difference between here and there. If we could get both places in sync, that would be a good thing. Can you help with that?

I do bad things. Everyone does. If I forgive them will you forgive me?

I take it you won’t lead me into tests I don’t need. But at least promise you won’t abandon me to pure evil. Unless I’m the perpetrator of it.

What am I saying? You’re in charge, you have the rights and the longterm training. You make better decisions than I ever will. You not only see the big picture, you are the big picture. Amen.

I want to point out that the principle sticks: you forgive and he forgives. You dig in your heels and he walks away.

Now I know you like to fast sometimes as a prayer add-on. But if you deny yourself food, you have to deny yourself self-pity. Stop with the “woe is me” looks when you’re fasting, those “I’m holier than you because I’m flagellating my stomach today” looks. Those are, frankly, creepy.

If you’re going to opt out of meals, freshen up, doll yourselves up, look like you just came from the free samples tables at the health food store. Again, righteousness is two parts secrecy to every one part self-denial.

This is all about bankrolling with heavenly senines. You stash things away on earth and they decay. Even the plates you inscribe these words on aren’t indestructible. But the next world is. If you deposit your wealth in its banks, you have something that gains interest forever. On earth, all banks fail.

Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. That’s a mantra of life. If you blur your focus the blurring becomes darkness. And that’s so hard to scrub out of your mind.

One master, my friends. Try two and you’ll always end up hating one of them and loving the other, shunning one of them while kissing up to the other. God and money are potential rivals. Don’t imagine you can serve both.

[At this point, Jesus turned back to the twelve, a scant audience for his next remarks:]

Beyond what I’ve said to the masses, I have higher demands of you. You have to obliterate ambition, planning, scheming, even the quest for daily food and clothing. Life transcends those transiencies. Look at birds. Have you ever seen a bird starving? And, no offense to the ornithological kingdom, God likes you more than birds.

Maybe someday science will overrun this boundary, but for now there’s no way you can, by plans and intentions, be a head taller than you are. You’re simply not in control.

Meanwhile, look at flowers—lilies, for example. They have no work hours, no time clock, no leather-bound planner to keep track of their commitments. They just bloom and grow, on and on. Go to any boutique. You can’t buy anything that looks better than a lily in the field. Okay, maybe only some lilies. But my point remains valid.

You mow grass, let it dry and then burn it. But grass has intrinsic beauty. So recuse yourselves from endless debates about the rise and fall of stocks and investments, the best places to dine out, etc. All that hoity-toity showmanship. So do you. God sees it, even if you don’t. God will give you enough, the quota of which he is perfectly capable of knowing.

You just focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus … On what? you say. Oh, I think you know. You’ve had so much stripped away from you by those last Acts of Me (God). If you can’t discern what’s left underneath it all, then you’re not the folks I thought you were. Don’t disappoint me, gentlemen.

Every day has good enough in it and evil enough in it. Acknowledge both and move on with your missions in life. About which more to come.