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4 Steps to Help You Align Your Will with Heavenly Father’s Will
From a devotional address, “‘Broke’ Hearts and Contrite Spirits,” given to students at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA, on February 2, 2021. Read the full text at speeches.byu.edu.
When we give Him the reins, He will make of our lives more than we could ever do running wild through life on our own.
What does it mean to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit?
The dictionary definition of a broken heart is “the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, whether through death, divorce, breakup, physical separation, betrayal, or romantic rejection.”1 I am sure that all of us at one time or another in our lives will experience this type of loss. Is that the sacrifice God wants from us—for us to suffer intense emotional pain? While it is true that repentance is not easy and involves godly sorrow, God “suffered the pain of all men” (Doctrine and Covenants 18:11) that “they might not suffer” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16) if they repent and come unto Him. God’s desire for us is happiness and joy, not pain and misery.
The word for heart in Hebrew, lev or levav, means the “inner man” or “will.” It is similar in meaning to what King Benjamin described as the natural man, implying that it is the natural man, or man’s will, that must yield and break in submission to God. This is the sacrifice He requires.
To have a broken heart and a contrite spirit means that we are willing to put off the natural man and yield our will to God’s will, our will being swallowed up in His—or, as President Nelson described it, we are willing to “let God prevail”2 in our lives.
While serving as a mission president, I was pondering one day about the relationship between putting off the natural man and having a broken heart. The words natural man and broken heart conjured up in my mind the image of a horse trainer “breaking” a wild or “natural” horse. I wondered if there might be something I could learn by comparing the process a horse trainer uses to tame a wild horse and the process God uses to tame the natural man in each of us—in other words, the process by which God grants unto us repentance.
To my surprise, I found a book called A Broke Heart, by a Christian horse trainer.3 As I read, I saw parallels between breaking a horse and how God was working with me, my missionaries, and many people in the scriptures. Perhaps you will also recognize this pattern in your life and see how God is working with you to prepare your heart to repent and believe.
But before getting to the pattern, let me share one interesting insight. I was intrigued by the title of the book, A Broke Heart—not a broken heart but a “broke” heart. The author explained that a wild horse that has been tamed is not broken by the process but discovers the joy and freedom of becoming one with its master—a state described as being broke, not broken.
Likewise, God’s intent is not to break us but to redeem us.
He does not want us to be brokenhearted but to have broke hearts and contrite spirits so that He can take the reins of our lives and guide us with His love to receive all of His promised blessings. The Lord said, “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways” (Jeremiah 17:10).
Horse trainers seek to build a relationship with the horse based on trust and respect—to become one with and united with the horse. They describe the relationship-building process not as breaking the horse but as partnering with or starting the horse. Based on our understanding of gospel truths, perhaps the best way to describe our relationship with God would be to describe it as a covenant relationship. Covenants are designed to unite man with God.
Whether it be the relationship between the horse trainer and the horse or the relationship between God and man, the objective is the same: to become united one with the other.
Four Steps to a “Broke” Heart
Now let’s turn to the pattern described in the book A Broke Heart detailing the process of breaking a horse. The parallels to how God works with us will become readily apparent.
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The first objective is to establish direction.4 The author explains that a horse will yield its will to its trainer when the pressure is applied by a confident and gentle leader it can trust and respect. The goal is for the horse to move its feet in the direction the trainer wants it to go. The horse may just buck and run wild, try to jump out of the round pen, or not move at all—which is called being “stuck.” Have you ever felt stuck or wanted to run away when life has gotten difficult?
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The second objective is for the horse to give the trainer “two eyes.”5 The trainer stands in the center of the pen and motions for the horse to come and give him or her two eyes. If it does, the trainer gives it a rest; otherwise, the trainer gets it to move again. Giving the trainer two eyes is a vulnerable position because the horse’s hind legs are its most powerful weapons.
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The third objective is to get the horse to “change direction.”6 After getting two eyes, the trainer steps back a couple of feet and points in the opposite direction. The object is to get the horse to change direction at the trainer’s command.
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The fourth objective is to establish a place of rest7 in the center of the pen. The horse comes to know that the closer it is to the trainer, the more rest and peace it will receive. The horse learns that when it yields to the pressure applied by the trainer, ultimately the trainer will grant a rest.
I found the parallels to be striking: The confident and gentle leader we can trust and respect is Jesus Christ. The round pen is mortality or whatever situation we find ourselves in that is causing us discomfort or stretching us physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.
I have summarized each of the four objectives into one word. Each word rhymes to make it easy to remember and to note in my scriptures when I recognize the pattern unfolding.
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The first objective, establish direction, I call desire. God stands in the center of our lives. He wants us to start moving—to trust Him. He wants us to begin the process of aligning our desires with His.
Mortality was designed to give us opportunities to learn and grow in order to reconcile the desires of our hearts to His.
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The second objective, giving “two eyes,” I shortened to inquire. The Lord invites us to give Him two eyes, which is to seek His face and to pray to know His will in our lives. The Lord loves it when we inquire of Him. To Alma, He said, “And because thou hast inquired of me … , thou art blessed” (Mosiah 26:19).
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The third objective, “change direction,” I have shortened to require. The Lord invites us to change direction based on our understanding of His will. Repentance is about change. It is yielding our hearts to God with willingness to move in the direction He requires.
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And the last objective, establish a place of rest, I shortened to retire. The Lord extends to us His rest. As we turn to the Savior and draw closer to Him, He releases the pressure and gives us rest. The Savior taught:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).
So remember the pattern: desire, inquire, require, and retire.
Allowing God to Teach You
God has given me many experiences that have blessed me by stretching me and causing me to rely more fully on Him. When I was called to be a Seventy, I was humbled and overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy. I did not buck or try to jump the fence, but it was not long before I was on my knees, giving God two eyes with more intensity than at any other time in my life. I experienced for myself what President Russell M. Nelson had taught: “When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then His power will flow into you.”8
I began to understand what the Lord required, the changes that I needed to make to be what He was calling me to be. Because of His grace, I felt a release of pressure—a rest, if you will—and a peaceful reassurance of His love.
Learning from Enos
Now let’s turn to the scriptures and see how this pattern played out in the life of Enos.
As you may recall, Enos went into the forest to hunt beasts, and the Lord began to establish direction in his life by getting his attention. Enos recorded, “The words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart” (Enos 1:3). Has the Spirit ever worked on you like that—something someone says or has said, for some unknown reason, sinks into your heart and shapes your desires? And then Enos described “the wrestle which [he] had before God” (Enos 1:2). He may have been kicking and bucking a little. Enos then knelt before his Maker and gave him two eyes, perhaps for the first time in his life. He described it this way:
“And my soul hungered; … and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens” (Enos 1:4).
Based on this sincere and fervent prayer, his life took a turn in direction. He turned more fully to God, devoted the rest of his life to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and “rejoiced in it above that of the world” (Enos 1:26). Enos closed his record by describing the rest the Lord granted him. He declared, “And I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in him I shall rest” (Enos 1:27; emphasis added).
Applying the Pattern to Our Lives
Have you seen this pattern play out in your own life? We all have situations that stretch us and cause us to grow and to turn to God more fully in our lives. Sometimes it may be the negative consequences of sin, but often it is the positive consequences of life’s challenges and opportunities. It may be the challenge of school, work, relationships, health, family, COVID-19, parenting, or a combination of these and other challenges. How is God getting your attention? Are you bucking and kicking and trying to jump the fence?
If you do not turn away from God but turn to Him, your round-pen experiences will not break you but will redeem you.
Instead of resisting, humble yourself and let God educate your desires. Give Him two eyes. Yes, you might feel a bit vulnerable, but remember that He loves you—you can trust Him! Pour out your whole soul to Him, and I promise that He will answer your prayers and His power will flow into you. “Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Luke 11:9). I promise that if you “ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ” (Moroni 10:4), He “will show unto you all things what ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:5) by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Once you know what He requires, commit to do it. Through the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, you can make the changes that He requires. One of my wife’s favorite scriptures is “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). “All things” includes the sometimes difficult but necessary changes He requires.
I promise that when you do, you can retire your fears and you will find peace and rest to your soul. In summary, desire the things of God, inquire of Him, and do what He requires, and you will find rest to your soul—you can retire to the safety of His arms. This pattern is not a checklist. I have found it to be a recurring pattern in my life. It does not happen on our timetable but on His. The process of reconciling our will to His is the work of a lifetime. It takes patience, faith, trust, and resilience.
I witness that Jesus Christ is the gentle and loving God who stands at the center of our lives. He invites each of us to repent and to believe with broke hearts and contrite spirits so that the power of His atoning sacrifice may flow into our lives. The blessings of His Atonement are “infinite and eternal” (Alma 34:14)—like “a well of [living] water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14; see also verse 13).
I testify that Jesus is the Christ. As we enter into a covenant relationship with Him, we will experience the joy of becoming one with Him. When we give Him the reins, He will make of our lives more than we could ever do running wild through life on our own. His promises are sure, and His grace is sufficient to get us home if we will believe and repent with broke hearts and contrite spirits (see Moroni 10:32).