Enos Learns and Teaches the Importance of Prayer

Enos Learns and Teaches the Importance of Prayer


What do you do when your soul hungers? When we are physically hungry and thirsty, we immediately know what to do. If we have food and drink available, we partake. How about when we are spiritually hungry? Do we know where to turn?

It used to be that it took some calculating work to obtain food. It was a struggle. It was necessary to hunt, and it was necessary to plant. Today, there is still the struggle of securing a job and being diligent so that you can secure a steady paycheck; but, once you have that, it’s quite simple to go to the market and get some food. (Ignoring the outrages cost these days, most of us are able to eat.)

Are you willing to engage in the physical and spiritual struggle that it takes to feed your soul?

Enos was. Even though he went out to hunt food, he recognized that his soul was hungry; and he remembered his father teaching him about the Lord. So he turned to the Lord in prayer. Not just for three minutes, but all through the day and night.

Are you willing to feel hungry enough to pay the cost to be fed? Or, are you looking to other sources to satisfy your soul? Sources that never will?

Enos was out in the wilderness by himself, and he cried aloud to the Lord. How can speaking aloud in prayer to Heavenly Father help our concentration? How can finding a solitary place help us focus? How does being determined to keep praying until we feel the Spirit and recognize the Lord’s voice help us in our efforts to ask Him to forgive us of our sins and to receive needed strength and nourishment from Him?

Enos wrestled with the Lord in prayer. So did Jacob, whose name became Israel.

Enos heard the Lord’s voice in his mind and in his heart (perhaps, also with his ears) telling him that his sins were forgiven him. This is such an important part of our being able to feel the Savior’s love and to become more converted to His ministry. Enos recognized his newfound freedom and asked, “Lord, how is it done?” The Lord’s answer, “Because of thy faith in Christ.”

Because of Enos’s faith in Jesus Christ, his guilt was swept away. We need to remember that forgetting the Lord or not recognizing His hand in all things is sin, because we become estranged from the Lord. There is no indication that Enos was a malignant terrible sinner. His conversion story is related here because he represents you and me, and what we can do to gain favor with the Lord and feel spiritually well. Prayer will increase our faith in Christ.

When Enos knew that the Lord was there, that He was listening, that he was loved by the Lord, and that his sins were forgiven, his heart took courage. He was fed. Immediately, he recognized his great blessing, and then his heart and his thoughts turned to his people, the Nephites. He wanted them to find the Lord to and to feel His wonderful loving embrace. His heart also turned to his cousins, the Lamanites. They were currently his enemies, but Nephi wanted them to feel of the Lord’s goodness too. After that, he prayed for the preservation of their records, so that future generations could come to know the Savior and find food for their souls through Him.

When we have been blessed by the Lord, the change in our hearts should be such that we also want to bless others and invite them to come unto Christ. I am thankful that Enos, and many other prophets in The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ taught us about the Savior and His mission. I am thankful that, like Nephi recorded, “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26).

Enos was blessed that his father Jacob, Nephi’s brother, had taught him of our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Enos knew where to turn. May we continue to teach our own children and grandchildren the importance of Jesus Christ and His mission, so that they may also know where to turn! We are recipients of His grace.  We need His forgiveness. As we pray to the Father in His name, we will be freed by Him, and blessed and fed through the Spirit. We bless others when we teach of Jesus and invite them to come unto Him. This is my testimony to you, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

I invite you to read Enos 1.

Enos Prays Mightily

 

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