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After I finished my first goal and journal entry for faith, I had some other thoughts come to me. This is the journal entry with my additional thoughts:
July 9, 2011
So, I started this goal as an imperfect pray-er, and I ended imperfectly. I do pray in the mornings pretty consistently, since I get up early specifically to pray and study the scriptures before my family wakes up, but it's praying before going to bed each night where I fall short, usually because I fall asleep on the couch while watching TV with my husband at the end of a long day. For a while I wondered if I would learn anything about faith from this goal because I didn't significantly change my habits (again, I'm already a pretty prayerful person). But I did realize a couple of things: I do pray more. I am going to the Lord more frequently in prayer during the day, even if I don't get a prayer in at bedtime. And the more I go to Him, regardless of the time of day, the more He helps me. I was also reminded just yesterday of an experience I had years ago. We needed help selling our house. I was very mindful at the time of the maxim, "Work as if everything depends on you; pray as if everything depends on God." I was praying as hard as I knew how. But I was concerned about working as hard as I could toward the desired result. We had hired an agent to sell our house for us, so the actual work of selling was out of my hands. How could I work as if everything depended on me? The Lord blessed me with a mini-revelation, letting me know that I could "work as if everything depended on me" by increasing my efforts to pray regularly, read my scriptures daily, attend the temple, magnify my callings, pay my tithing, keep my covenants, and just do my best at everything He asked me to do. I wasn't perfect at all those things then, either. But I did my best. I focused on being more consistent with those things, and giving more thought to keeping my connection to the Lord open through prayer. And He, in return, helped us to sell our house. I am still amazed at the experience, and humbled by His blessings to me and my family. So is prayer important? Vitally. And my resolve to pray is even stronger than when I started this goal.
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