followHIM - "How do I keep from getting discouraged?" : follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from the Come, Follow Me study from Joshua.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This year, John and I are going through the Old Testament, looking at a specific question from each week's lesson. So, John, this week, we are in the book of Joshua. And we hear over and over in this book, the Lord saying to Joshua, be of good courage, meaning don't get discouraged. Don't get discouraged. But as life continues, I've noticed that's easier said than done sometimes to not get discouraged. So John, our follow him question this week is, how do you keep from getting discouraged?

How do you do what the Lord has asked and be of a good courage? John, you're a pretty positive guy. I've known you for a long time and you're positive and you don't seem discouraged all that often. How do you do it? Good acting. Let me think. Well, during the time when Gordon B. Hinckley was the president of the church, Sherry Dew said something once, like, if you're ever around President Hinckley a lot, and she was because she wrote his biography, you will hear him say, things will work out. And then I found a statement in the church news where President Hinckley said, things will work out. He said, I say that to myself every morning.

And I started to think about what it might feel like, the weight on your shoulders to be the president of the church. What is it the president of the church says to himself every morning? He says, things will work out. And that kind of long-term, first principle, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, things will work out, that helps me. Because sometimes instead of saying, oh no, things won't work out, it's more like, this is tough right now. What can I learn?

What is the Lord trying to teach me? Who can I help? That helps me. And just remember President Hinckley that I just loved so much. Things will work out. Things will work out. So keep going. I don't know if that helps or not, but it did help me for sure. Spirit of the gospel is optimistic. We hear the Savior over and over in the New Testament, Be of good cheer. Be of good cheer. Almost as if it's a commandment to choose to be of good cheer. Even the fact that Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Wasn't that the very night His suffering would begin, that whole week? And for Him to say, don't be troubled, don't be afraid.

I've overcome the world. And we really do have to take a long view. And when we do, things will work out. Yeah. I wrote a book on happiness. It sold dozens of copies, mostly to my mom. But I learned quite a bit about happiness. Didn't you write a book called How to Be Totally Miserable?

We should sell those as a package deal. Yeah. That's so funny. We're always telling teens, do this, do that. I thought, why don't we just say, well, okay, don't be miserable. And that was where I got that idea. It sold, I think four copies. Yeah. I bought two of those, John. They were really helpful. The idea is what you choose to focus on is actually what your brain will start to see. When I was looking at a specific car to buy, I started seeing that car everywhere. And when I decided looking at a specific car to buy, I started seeing that car

everywhere. And when I decided, you know, I'm not going to buy that car, it went away. I don't see that car as often. So we may be thinking nothing good is happening around me. Nothing positive is happening around me, but you can actually train your brain to start to highlight those and you'll see them more and more and more. You can do what's called like a gratitude journal where you try to keep track of things that you're grateful for, things that made your day better. And all of a sudden you'll start to highlight those. I remember a general conference talk

that had an impact on my life was Elder Bednar's The Tender Mercies of the Lord. And he said to start to look for those. And those have really impacted my ability to not get discouraged because we know who's on our side, right? Didn't Elder Stevenson say, you have the savior of the world on your side. He loves you. No matter what you've done, he loves you. How can you fail? So I like what you said there, John, about President Hinckley. He focuses on who's in

charge, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we really believe that he is mighty to save and that our world is in very loving, sure hands, then I think we can. I think we can follow this commandment to be of good courage. It's going to work out. It's going to be okay. He'll help us find a message in our misfortunes too. We'll go through something hard and we'll say, you know, I'm glad I went through that because I learned this, this, this. And almost always when you hear people give a talk, it was something hard that they went through and how much they grew or learned from it. That is such a common theme in all these scriptures we've been studying too. Here's a hardship, but here's what we learned from it. Yeah. And that doesn't mean we don't have the right to feel. I don't want

anyone thinking, oh, that means I've got to put a permanent smile on my face. It doesn't. You can have bad days. You can have bad months or bad weeks. But there should be, what Elder Scott said, those bad times are against a backdrop of a happy life. So, they're not the scenes themselves. They're not the focus of my everything that happens to me. But they are, I can have bad times. But the backdrop itself is a overall happy time. Yeah, I like that. We hope you'll join us on our full podcast.

It's called Follow Him. We're going to talk more about this, how to not get discouraged and what Joshua does throughout his life. So we hope you'll join us there. And of course, join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites.