In his most recent Conference talk, President Nelson urged each of us to “Think Celestial.” I like the talk and I like the catchiness of the phrase “Think Celestial”, but I have to admit the English major in me has been struggling with the grammar. If we want to be grammatically correct, and if we are to assume that the verb think is supposed to be modified by the adjective celestial, then the phrase should really be “Think Celestially.” Admittedly, it’s not as catchy, but I’m also not sure that this is what President Nelson meant. We are mortal beings. Our thoughts are not the Lord’s thoughts. As much as we might like to, we can’t think celestially. Our brains aren’t wired for it. Trying to think celestially, or to think the thoughts that the Lord thinks, is like trying to look at the sun during a partial eclipse. We can try to do it, but we will only be able to keep it up for a very short time and we will most likely hurt ourselves in the process. We may have a burning desire to understand why the Lord does the things that He does, but we can’t hold all of those celestial thoughts inside our own head. When we are tempted to ignore or devalue or rebel against the directions of the Spirit, at the most basic level this temptation comes from an inability to understand Celestial thoughts. But when we are confronted by truths too big for us to grasp, we can follow the counsel of a living prophet and think: Celestial. We can recognize that we can not at present see and think as deeply and as clearly as our Heavenly Father and we can humbly submit to His will anyway. God knows that it is extremely hard for us to think temporally and yet also follow Celestial counsel that seems to run contrary to every instinct and intuition and common sense that we possess. He sacrificed His Only Begotten Son because He knew that if He gave us the power to choose for ourselves to follow our own temporal thinking or to follow His Celestial thinking, we would so often choose to follow our own thoughts and ways instead of His. But I do know that if at first we can only partake of the glory of God by seeing through a glass darkly, the more and more we think Celestial and the more and more we follow the guidance of the Holy Ghost even when it makes no sense to us, even when our fears seem so much more real and our Heavenly Father’s promises seem so much more imaginary, the clearer and clearer that glass will become, and the brighter and brighter will grow the light as our eye becomes single to the glory of God. Every time we choose to think Celestial we push the boundaries of our minds a little wider and a little deeper. It may take a lifetime but if we keep thinking Celestial, we will eventually begin to start thinking Celestially, so that our Heavenly Father’s thoughts become our thoughts, and His ways become our ways.
