[MUSIC]
Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week's come follow me lesson. John, we are in second chronicles today. I have a story for you.
“First of all, John, do you remember in second chronicles 18?”
Someone is asking about the prophet. And the king of Israel says, we do have a prophet that we can inquire of the Lord. But I hate him. Exactly from King James. But I hate him.
But I hate him, for he never prophesies good unto me.
I don't like that guy. Different king, same time period, this guy's name is Jehosephat. The prophet says to Jehosephat, you can go out to battle and you'll win. Jehosephat is terrified, John, this is second chronicles 20 verse 12, he's praying. We have no might against this great company that come with against us.
Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. Then this is when the prophet says, go out to fight, you'll be fine. The battle is not yours, but God's.
“Jehosephat says to his people, believe in the Lord your God, so shall be established, believe”
his prophets, so shall ye prosper. The Hosephat's army goes out to fight, John, he actually puts the choir in front.
He puts singers in front.
Well, before I tell you what happens, let me tell you this story. This story is told by Elder Randall K. Bennett, 2019, at BYU, the BYU devotional. He's talking about his wonderful wife, Shelly, who, by the way, John, he says, I had to propose to four times before she consented to marry me. And Shelly, his wife, when she was 15, she had an experience that changed her life.
At a youth conference, she unexpectedly met an apostle. Wow, do apostles come to you. You're youth conferences, John. This apostle did not know Shelly nor her family, but he invited her to do something. She was really surprised by it.
He said, will you kiss your father on the cheek every night and tell him that you love him for an entire year?
“What would you say, John, do you like a year or a year?”
She agreed, of course, I think anyone would, but inside, she thought this is going to be impossible. The apostle did not know that her father was wonderful, but a very, very, very reserved man.
Shelly said she had never seen her father kiss anyone, including her mother.
She had never heard her father say, I love you to anyone. So she thought this assignment would be awful or impossible, but she decided to try what the apostle had invited her to do. For the first few nights, Elder Bennett says, as she kissed her father on the cheek and said, I love you dad, he did not react positively at all.
He would simply sit rigid like a statue while she kissed him on the cheek and said, I love you dad, this continued for one entire year. By then, it felt good expressing love to him, so she decided to continue. Eventually, one night, she heard her father gently whisper, I love you too. The next night, he even kissed her on the cheek as well, and then just a few days later,
her beloved father suddenly passed away from a heart attack. Now, Elder Bennett's very funny here, he says, I'm not telling you to kiss people who don't want to be kissed, and I'm not telling you it's okay to be angry at someone who's trying to be kind to you. What he is teaching, he says, is the power that came into Shelley's life because she
learned at a very young age to follow the prophets of God. Now, Shelley's father did not join the church before he passed away, but many years later, she was telling another apostle about this situation. This apostle said, Shelley, do you know why the spirit clearly prompted that apostle to invite you to do what he invited you to do?
It was because Heavenly Father knew that you could soften your father's heart before he passed away, so that he would accept the gospel on the other side of the veil. Wow, follow the prophet. Well, John Joseph at does, he falls the prophet, he puts his choir out front when they came to sing the Lord set ambushments against their enemies, so when they were coming over
the hill, everyone was dead, all the entire army that was coming against them. All of them were dead, and it took them weeks, it says, to take up all the treasure and spoil. Here's our line again, believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established, believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.
Great. I thought he was going to go kiss the choir on the cheek or something, but that works.
That's great.
Mr. Bennett, thank you for following the prophet and giving us a great story.
Maybe she might hear this.
“We hope you'll join us on our full podcast.”
It's called Follow Him.
You can get it wherever you get any podcast.
We are with Heather Farrell this week. She is wonderful.
“Neither of us new sister Farrell before we have her on the show, you are going to love it.”
Then come back to your next week, we'll do another Follow Him Favorites.
