followHIM - "What do I do when I wanted thunder, but got a still small voice instead?" follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from this week's Come, Follow Me study.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, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. We are taking a single question from this week's Come Follow Me lesson and talking about it. John, this week's lesson, we're in the beginning chapters of 2 Kings, and there's a story in here about a man named Naaman who expects something huge and gets something quite mundane, something quite boring. So here's my question for you. What do you do when you have big expectations for spiritual experiences, for God, for life? You have these big expectations and the answers are really quite what you might call just typical, kind of not what you expected. What do you do when those expectations

aren't met? Gosh, that's a good question. I think that it was Elder Maxwell that said, God doesn't send lightning and thunder when a still small voice will do, type of a thing. And I think sometimes our expectations are that our experiences will be like the scriptures. And I like what somebody said once, I think it was Elder McConkie way back in the day, that said some things that happened to these ancients were so miraculous,

they got written up in the scriptures, which is telling us they weren't typical. They were extreme. They were huge. But for many of us, boy, just staying on the covenant path is a great thing and a great accomplishment. And be an example to those around you is a great thing.

And it might sound mundane or simple, or those are the answers I always hear. But Heavenly Father needs people who quietly just move forward and live the gospel. And in retrospect, that is a great thing. And Naaman was asked, go wash in the Jordan. And what was his response? Hank, the Jordan, that's just... Yeah, it says Naaman was wroth. Here she said, behold, I thought that he would come out and call on the name of the Lord

and strike his hand and recover the leper. He has this idea in his head of what this is supposed to go like, and it doesn't go like that. But it's nice that he has a good friend who says, hey, listen, if you had asked you to do some great thing, you would have done it. Why not do the simple thing then? Why not give it a try? You're expecting something big and you feel the spirit that says, be nicer to your family. Yeah.

Oh, but I've heard that before. I don't want to hear that. And I like what you said, Hank, about a friend. It's so great to have a friend that would be willing to say something like Naaman said. Well, if he'd asked you a big thing, you would have done it. He just asked you a small thing. Be nice to your family. Why don't you maybe give that a try?

Why don't you give that small thing a try? John, this discussion is reminding me of when all my friends were getting big mission calls. I had a friend get called to Brazil and another friend get called to Hungary. And I'm like, wow, where am I going to go? And I got called to California. That was my second King's 511 kind of moment. Name was Roth and said, but I thought that it would be bigger and more important. And I had the spirit say to me, does it matter? How about you go serve that mission call,

the one that you've been given? And it ended up being a fantastic mission, which I loved. And it taught me many things and enabled me to teach the gospel in English, which at the time, I wouldn't have known, but that's what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life, would be teaching the gospel in English. In English, yeah. And I think that a lot of our listeners may have had a modified mission. I wrote a chapter in When It Doesn't Make Sense called Modified Missions because, well, I was called here, but how come I didn't go there? And I love what Elder Bednar talked about. The call to serve is the amazing, wonderful, big thing. The assigned

to labor is a different thing. And some got switched around. Some never got where they were going. But you being in a place where you were called to serve is amazing. What a unique thing that is in this world. Yeah. John, I was thinking about when we kneel down to say prayers, Lord, what would thou have me do? And he said, I would have you go to church. I would have you read your scriptures. I would have you pray. Say your prayers.

I would have you do these things. And we might say, no, I want to do some great thing. I want to do something big, right? And I think we can end up like Naaman and being upset that we're being called to do something small and simple, but yet it works. It works. Naaman, it works. You get your prayers answered by doing the very thing that you're angry

for getting that answer. So maybe don't be surprised, John, if you get those simple answers. Yeah. And I think the famous UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, would bring these greatest high school players in the country who came to and got to play for John Wooden at UCLA and get the first lesson he would give them, if I remember right, was how to put on your socks. He would say, this is how high the basketball standard is. And he would measure it. And this is how, and these are people who play basketball their whole, you know, their whole lives. Yeah. And because if you get a blister, you can't play, you're not any good.

So he would start with these very basic, simple things. And I just think it sounds simple, harder to do, but just stay on the covenant path and just find ways to hear him every day. And don't worry about the great things. They may come in life, but for right now, stay on the covenant path, learn to hear him. What was his three identities? You are a child of God, a child of the covenant, and a disciple of Christ. That's who you are. Those are great things. Yeah. You think about the Savior himself, John. He wasn't a big traveler. He didn't travel across the world that we know of, right? Never probably traveled more than a couple hundred miles away from home.

And yet we want mission calls that are thousands of miles away from home. And Jesus himself served a basically at-home mission. And you read what Naaman says here after he does these small and simple things. He says, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. I think if you put in the time doing the small little things that the prophet is asking of you, you can come to that same testimony. Good point. Hey, we want you to join us on our full podcast. It's called Follow Him. This week, we're interviewing Dr. Crystal Pierce, and you are going to love her. She is delightful and brilliant.

Come on over. Look up Follow Him wherever you get your podcasts. And then come back next week right here because we're going to do another Follow Him favorite. Thank you.