One night I got a late pick up from Lindon to the airport. It was a good ride financially and I was excited to get it. I picked her up at a really nice house only a few blocks from the Lindon Temple. You could see the temple was almost in the back yard of this home. It stood up there shining bright and it was very pretty at midnight.
She got in the car and we started to drive. I said, wow, the temple is really pretty at night lit up like that. She said, yeah I suppose, I just feel bad for the family whose land it is on. I thought to myself, such a negative take. She went on to talk about how some of the kids wanted to get more money out of the land and were not happy with the churches approach. One of the children was upset at the mother who had made the deal.
I said, I’m sure the mother considered it to be an honor to have such a beautiful building, a house of God, on her property. I said, I’m pretty sure that’s where her head was. The girl said, yes, but in my opinion the church had taken advantage. I asked, are you a member of the church? She said, well kind of. I’ve been baptized and I was married in the temple.
Right away, I felt really prickly vibes and felt that there was a bigger problem. It was like a puzzle and none of the pieces fit. On the outside, she looked like a member of the church. I found it strange that she sure was dressed up and fancy up for a red-eye flight.
Even though the discussion of the church had drawn a little prickly vibe, I felt prompted to continue talking about it. I decided to start by talking about her and her life. I asked her where she was from and she said up in that area. I asked her if she went to college and she said yes, BYU Idaho and then she went on a mission. After her mission she finished up back up in Rexburg.
I said, I’m from Ucon, Idaho! She said, I hate Idaho. She said, it’s too cold and there’s nothing to do. She said, all of the people there seem like they are mud farmers and those are not the kind of people I like associating with.
Right away, I could feel the lack of joy this person had in her soul. She was almost a black hole. Clearly, she had not figured out that you’ll be happy if you decide to be happy. I asked her if anything good happened at BYU Idaho. I could see that she had a ring on her finger and I assumed that’s where she met her husband. I expected to get some answer regarding that. She said, no, not really.
I asked, what about your husband? Did you meet him there? She said, yes but again that wasn’t such a great thing. Then she spent the next few minutes in a litany of shortcomings that she perceives her husband to have. She said, I don’t like being in a toxic relationship. I said, no one should be in a toxic relationship.
I asked, what are the things your husband does that are toxic? She thought for a minute and she said, well, we don’t go on good vacations and we live paycheck to paycheck. I’m getting a promotion at work soon and we can finally start to afford some things. I asked, do you have kids? She said she had two girls.
Then she said, as soon as I get my promotion, I’m going to get a divorce. All of a sudden the spirit impressed on me that the temple being there in the backyard and her having a problem with it all seemed to make sense. It was reminding her of the covenant she made and at that moment she had neither love for her husband or a desire to follow those covenants.
I asked her if her husband had done something that made her want to get a divorce. I was wondering if he had been unfaithful or if he was abusive. I asked her if this was the case. She said that he hadn’t been unfaithful and that he wasn’t abusive but he just wasn’t living up to her expectations. She said, I can do better and I shouldn’t have to settle.
I was speechless and that’s not an easy thing to accomplish. I prayed for guidance and what to say. You don’t want to tick someone off really bad, but I felt like I needed to say something.. I got the impression that on this trip she was going to be with a coworker and they were planning on having an affair.
All of a sudden being all gussied up for a red-eye flight made a little sense. I’ve done more than my share of flying in my day and I’ve taken a lot of red-eyes but never once did I dress up for a red-eye flight. I was in sweats, T-shirts and sleeping on those red-eye flights. This was truly not the case. This fact confirmed the prompting that I had received.
It also gave me a window into the reasoning for her negativity towards the church and her husband. She had to demean those things to justify the step she was planning to take.
I felt prompted to talk to her about the atonement, so I did. I talked about how we feel powerless in our lives sometimes and how things don’t go the way we expect. I said, when this happens, we can turn to Christ. When this happens, the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ can lift us through our disappointment and fill us with purpose.
I said, you have the gift of the Holy Ghost and if you get your mind right and your heart right, the atonement can lift you through the disappointment and the trials in your life. I said, no one is perfect and all people will fail you, including your husband. I said, you’ve also failed him, but through the atonement, you can be healed and lifted together. I said, that’s the plan.
Knowing that she had been on a mission roughly during the time that I have been in the MTC serving in branch presidencies, I knew that she had seen the Elder Bednar talk called “Character of Christ”. I saw in front of me, the result of not turning out in love and service, but turning in to the natural man. Turning in to your own carnal desires.
I mentioned that talk to her and asked if she remembered seeing it. She said said that she remembered that they went to it but she didn’t remember very much about it. I talked about it and said, it’s through the atonement of Jesus Christ that we can have the power and strength to turn out and serve other people. We can become God‘s hands and lift ourselves while we lift them.
I said, no situation is perfect, but even in a bad situation or a difficult one, we can be happy if we look to Christ and turn out just like Elder Bednar taught. She was quiet in the backseat.
I said, sometimes when our expectations are not met, we blame other people. We lose sight of Christ and lose contact with the spirit. I think what happens after that is you become critical and very cynical. Finding fault becomes a method of assuaging the angst you feel.
Christ would have you turned to him to assuage that angst, to mend that heart and make it possible to decide to be happy. You find what you look for. If you look for problems, you’ll find them.
I said, I’m sure your husband‘s not perfect, but is it really worth blowing the whole thing up when by turning into Christ, you could both become better.
I said, one of the most important things in marriage is forgiveness. We need to get forgiveness, but we also need to give forgiveness. If we don’t forgive others, how can we expect to be forgiven ourselves? If we don’t forgive others, we carry their burdens around with us too.
I said, when was the last time you purposefully looked for the good in your husband? She said, well, probably never. I said, if you look for the good, you’ll find the good.
I told her about when my kids went to school and if they were struggling, I would tell them to come home with a list of five things that they liked. After a few days of that they would like school because they started accustoming themselves to looking for the good. It is all in Llooking for things they like instead of the negative. I said, it works that way in marriage too. If you train yourself to look for the good things, you’ll find them. If you look to Christ, he’ll lift you through the atonement and if you turn out in service to others you’ll be happy and you’ll have the spirit of God with you. I said, that’s a good foundation.
She said, everything you’re saying makes sense and I know it’s true. I just don’t know if I want to put in that work. I said, God‘s not going to force you to be happy. You can be happy, you can be sad or you can be miserable. It’s kind of all up to you. I said, the things you’re thinking, the path you’re going down and the actions you were planning to take will not make you happy, peaceful or fulfilled.
She asked, what do you know about the path I’m planning to take? I decided that this would be the time to talk about the prompting that I had earlier. I said, you’re planning on having an affair with the person you’re traveling with. You’ve been talking about it and your heart’s been set on it. This is why you recently become very antagonistic in your relationship with both your husband and the church.
You’re finding reasons to criticize them so that you’ll feel more justified in the actions you’re preparing to take. Satan is whispering in your ear. He’s whispering about these things and changing your perspective. Don’t let him shape the battlefield. Why would you let Satan lay down the rules to the game to determine whether or not you’re happy or whether or not your marriage is successful?
It’s Satan telling you that you shouldn’t have to settle. You need to spend less time on TikTok listening to divorced women and you should ditch your divorced friends that complain, nonstop about how horrible their husbands were. She said, you just called out exactly what’s going on. Scrolling TikTok, and talking to my friends about our relationships lately has been my entire social life. How did you know? I hadn’t even realized myself that this was a problem. It clearly is.
The only thing you could hear in the car was the humming of the wheels on the road and a little bit of sniffling coming from the backseat. I said, God joined you and your husband together and you need to fight for that union, the blessings promised and the peace available to people who follow Christ and jeep their covenants.
She asked, how did you know that’s what I was going to do on this trip? I said, right after you got in the car, the spirit whispered that to me. You know that this is true.
I could feel the power of the spirit behind my words. I said, this is why I talked about the atonement. God gave me those words to tell you so that you could look to him. They answered your questions. As I talked about the atonement, in your mind, you saw how what I was saying would rectify any situation that you were confronted with.
I felt prompted to talk about the character of Christ. God has seen you turn in and you’ve got so much ability and capacity to bless others if you would turn out. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I got your ride.
God does not want you to blow up your family, blow up your marriage, blow up your covenants and jump off the deep end. It’s time to seek first the kingdom of God and then wait for other things to be added to you.
The spirit was moving in the car and had been for some time. I could feel at times that her spirit was resisting, but there was nothing she could say because everything I was saying was true. She was confounded.
I asked, do you remember what the spirit feels like? She said yes. I said, have you felt it here in the car? By this point, she was sobbing and she said yes.
I told her that following God and keeping your covenants is not settling. I said, it’s never settling to step up and be a woman of God. It’s never settling to do the right thing. It’s never settling to serve others and as a former Idaho mud farmer adjacent person, it’s never settling to be a mud farmer. The only time it’s settling is when you settle for things of this world and deny your spiritual birthright through disobedience. The very essence of settling is turning in to the natural man. Quit doing that.
She said, I’m a wreck. I had my plan all worked out. I don’t know what to do. I said, pray. I said, I feel like it’s been a very long time since you prayed. By praying, I don’t mean just saying words but communicating with your father in heaven. How long has that been? She said, it’s been a very long time, many years. I said, it’s time to do that again. It’s time to do that on the airplane. It’s time to do that in your hotel room. It’s time to do that with your family and it’s time to do that before you go to bed and when you wake up.
I said, my Mission President used to tell me to start a prayer before I left the apartment and walk all day on my knees in my heart. It’s time for you to pray. I said, you brought Satan in and if you don’t get the spirit with you, he will ravage you and your family. That’s up to you. How do you want that to go?
I said, remember that wickedness never was happiness and there’s nothing more wicked than blowing up your family and that will never make you happy. I could feel the spirit still testifying through my words and the impact was landing.
I said, if you follow through with this, it will be a disaster for the rest of your life. God sent you his spirit tonight to help you realize that. Don’t turn away.
She said I certainly was not expecting this on my ride. I’ve set myself up a little bit and I have some work to do to get out of it. I asked her if she could still feel the spirit and she said yes. I said, what does that mean? What does it mean that you feel the spirit right now? She said, it means that what you’re saying is true, I need to do these things.
I said, God will put the words in your heart to say if you will be your knees in your heart. He will help you negotiate this because he wants you back.
We were coming up on the airport and she composed herself and she said, the only way you could’ve known all these things and spoken to me like this is through the spirit. I know God sent you. I should have learned these things before. I said, it’s not too late. God wants you to be happy and he will be there with you. He will walk with you if you will have him. If you will access the atonement, look for the good in others, quit being critical and start turning out in love and service to others like you learned in the “Character of Christ”, you can make this happen. You can save your family and you can save your soul. It’s up to you but tonight is a crossroads.
We were pulling up to the drop off and she said, I had it all figured out. I said, yes, but it takes faith to step into the unknown and follow God. That’s what you need to do. She said, I will. She thanked me, shook my hand and got out of the car.
Sometimes rides are a pleasant conversation and sometimes everything gives way to the spirit from the start. The first 2/3 of this ride were flat out a struggle, a wrestle, a fight. I could feel the resistance but I could feel God fighting back. God weighed in. Now she needs to do the right thing. I believe she will.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 