Drawing Closer to the Spirit Through Fasting and the Sacrament

Today, I only have a vague idea of what I want to blog about. I want to blog about something like "drawing closer to the spirit by fasting and partaking of the sacrament," but I don't have enough of the right kind of material for that. I can talk about how fasting increases our spiritual power, since there's a small section in the Gospel Principles manual that talks about that, and then I could link that to how the sacrament is supposed to help us to "always have His spirit to be with [us]." I guess that the underlying message that I'm going for here is that there are certain, special things we can do, which we already do regularly, in addition to prayer, scripture study, and righteous living, that can help us to have the spirit more. And we're doing two of them today.

Fasting is a way we draw closer to God by putting our physical desires into subjection to the will of the Lord. It's a way we can make a small sacrifice for Him, and learn greater self-control. For this, the Lord blesses us with a portion of His spirit, especially when we distract ourselves from our physical hunger by thinking of spiritual things. And since we gain greater self-control by fasting, it makes us less likely to drive the spirit away by yielding to temptation.

Another way God has given us to help of focus our thoughts on spiritual matters is through the sacrament. We take the sacrament each week in remembrance of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. During the sacrament, we promise to "always remember Him [Jesus Christ],"  and in return, we are promised that we will "have His spirit to be with [us]." This may be a natural cause-and-effect. The more we think of the Savior, the more we feel His spirit.

In reality, God has given us many. many ways to draw closer to Him and feel His spirit more fully. These methods include praying to Him, reading the scriptures, bearing our testimonies, following Christ's example, being kind to one another and serving one another, and the list goes on. All of these things can generally be summed up in "doing what He asks," or in other words, keeping His commandments. Many of these things, we can do, and are indeed asked to do, every day.

But there are also things that draw us closer to the spirit that we're only asked to do once a week or once a month (we can fast more often than once a month, but we're only asked, or required, to do it once a month). These are special opportunities to put our hearts in tune with God's. As Latter-Day Saints, and especially for those of us who have been members for a long time, there can be a tendency to become used to fasting once a month and partaking of the sacrament once a week. If we're not careful to think about why God asks us to do it, we may begin to take these things for granted as something we do every so often. I think that's why God asks us to fast with purpose and to pray as we fast (which I too often forget to do).

God really, really loves us. He desires our happiness and our ultimate success. And luckily for us, He has achieved great happiness and success, and He invites us to obtain it also by drawing closer to Him by following His path. God wants to bless us with every blessing He enjoys, and to that end, He invites us to come unto Him through fasting, prayer, partaking of the sacrament, and keeping His other commandments. I'm grateful that God has shown us the way to live on earth so we can live in heaven with Him. I hope that we all will remember to follow the path He has shown us.