Ed Week Recap - S. Michael Wilcox

I loved Education Week this year (as always)! I really enjoyed each and every one of my classes, and even though I took a risk and spent one hour with a teacher I was unfamiliar with, he turned out to be great, and I would definitely take a class from him again. The other hours I spent with tried and true teachers that I have loved for years, and they didn't disappoint.

I started the morning by going to the Marriott Center to listen to S. Michael Wilcox - LOVE him!! His first hour was a class called "Applying the Scriptures: Ancient Truths In a Modern Setting". I didn't take notes this hour, though I probably should have. He used various scriptural scenarios to give present day application and show how the scriptures really were written for our day and contain so many answers.

Since his class was so good, I decided to stay on for the next hour. (The first hour I sat with my mom in her preferred area in the upper bowl, but I ditched her during the second hour in favor of a front row seat.)

The class this hour was titled "Vision of Joseph Smith: Piercing the Veil". The key idea of this class was that God will speak to us. He is a revealing God, not a hiding God. He likes and wants to give us truths.

In the First Vision account, Joseph Smith describes himself as "an obscure boy of no consequence to the world." Brother Wilcox points out that God will speak to us, too, "obscure" though we may be, if we are (as the boy Joseph was) "inquirers after truth".

Brother Wilcox points out that we need to make a place for the knowledge God would give us. He uses the analogy of this knowledge being "liquid light" God will use to fill our souls. If we carve out (by inquiring, searching, reflecting, doing) a deep place with which to hold the knowledge, then God will fill it. However, if we create something more of a saucer within ourselves, God will still fill it, but he won't overfill it or let it spill out. We need to prepare ourselves to be filled. Our preparation has everything to do with the amount of knowledge we receive. He points out that desire carves out the depth of a soul.

There was so much more to the class than I can possibly cover here, but one more point he made was that the adversary gets nervous when we get close to getting what we need. Case in point obviously being that he was there and quick to pounce when Joseph determined to go pray in solitude to God and ask with sincerity which church to join.

Michael Wilcox reminds us that we have a "fourth watch God" - an illustration he uses often; he calls it the "Fourth Watch Principle". (One of my favorite talks of all time is by S. Michael Wilcox and is titled "When Your Prayers Seem Unanswered" - it covers this principle. It's available as a book, and I highly recommend it.)

In Matthew 14 and Mark 6 we read that Jesus went up into a mountain to be alone and to pray. During this time his disciples were in a boat being tossed about on the sea by a raging storm. They were unable to get to shore due to the high winds pushing against them. We are told that Jesus was aware of this and saw them toiling. Yet it was not until the fourth watch of the night that he went to them.

Okay, I can see I will need to do this in installments. I'll stop here for now, and when I get another chance I will post more about my classes....