Talk Preparation Guide for "Divine Appointments"

President Timothy L. Farnes teaches that following Jesus Christ includes recognizing and responding to the people God places in our path. Through experiences of receiving and offering compassion, he shows how ordinary encounters become divine appointments. As you prepare your sacrament meeting talk, consider how the sacrament covenant connects with daily ministering, and choose experiences that help listeners see how they can reflect the Savior’s love. Preview questions: What does taking upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ mean in everyday interactions? How does compassion change the way you see someone who needs help? What distractions keep you from recognizing divine appointments? How does the Holy Ghost help you notice and respond to another person’s needs? What simple action can you invite listeners to take this week?

Topics

Lift Discouraged Hearts Through Compassionate Listening

President Farnes describes how Elder Dallin H. Oaks listens to his concerns, expresses gratitude, and offers encouragement. This encounter illustrates how sincere compassion renews a person’s desire to serve the Lord. Elder Oaks’s response, “It’s what we do,” presents such ministering as a natural expression of covenant discipleship.

He said, “Brother, tell me how you are really doing.”

Something about the compassion in his voice helped me open up.

Then he gave me a big hug, and in an instant I went from feeling like giving up to feeling like I could give my whole soul in service to the Lord.

As covenant followers of Jesus Christ, we minister with compassion to whomever God places in our path.

Key Points:

A person’s outward response does not always reveal their discouragement or need.
Sincere questions and patient listening create opportunities for meaningful ministering.
Gratitude and encouragement help others find renewed strength to serve.
An act of compassion can have a lasting impact even when the person offering it does not remember it.
Covenant followers minister because they seek to follow Jesus Christ.

Experiences:

What experience shows how someone’s sincere listening helps you feel understood and valued?
Who offers encouragement that strengthens your willingness to serve the Lord?
What small act of kindness continues to influence your life, even if the giver does not know its impact?
What experience helps you recognize that someone who appears fine may need compassion?

Reflect Jesus Christ Through Your Sacrament Covenant

President Farnes connects taking upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ with seeing, feeling, and acting as He does. The sacrament covenant includes the Lord’s promise that we can always have His Spirit with us. Daily ministering provides a way to live the covenant we make during sacred time with God.

That means we choose to see as He sees, feel as He feels, and do as He would do.

It means that when someone encounters us, they should experience something of Jesus Christ—His kindness, His patience, His hope, His love, His compassion.

Our promise of willingness is met by the Lord’s promise that we can always have His Spirit with us.

We make the covenant during sacred time with God every Sunday. A way we keep the covenant is by ministering to God’s children every day.

Key Points:

Taking upon ourselves Christ’s name includes reflecting His character in our interactions.
Kindness, patience, hope, love, and compassion make discipleship visible to others.
The companionship of the Spirit helps us minister with the Savior’s power and loving kindness.
Sacrament worship and daily service are connected expressions of covenant living.
Divine appointments provide opportunities to put our covenant commitments into practice.

Experiences:

What experience connects your participation in the sacrament with a desire to treat someone more like the Savior does?
Who helps you understand Christ’s kindness or patience through the way they treat you?
What experience illustrates how the Spirit helps you respond lovingly in a difficult interaction?
Where do you see opportunities in your daily routine to reflect the name of Jesus Christ?

Recognize Divine Appointments With Eyes to See

Using the Savior’s account of the wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, President Farnes contrasts seeing an interruption with seeing an opportunity to minister. He teaches that noticing a person’s need awakens compassion, which leads to action. The Savior’s example invites us to see people as central to our discipleship rather than as distractions from it.

Where others saw an inconvenience or an interruption, one man saw an opportunity to minister—a divine appointment.

Seeing awakened compassion. Compassion moved him to act. And his actions changed a life forever.

To Jesus, these people were not interrupting His mission. They were His mission.

What once looked like random encounters become invitations from the Lord to minister with compassion.

Key Points:

The same encounter can appear to be either an inconvenience or an invitation to serve.
Recognizing another person’s need is an important first step toward compassionate action.
The Savior turns ordinary encounters into opportunities for healing, encouragement, and transformation.
People are central to the Savior’s ministry, not interruptions to it.
Using our eyes to see helps us recognize opportunities to minister all around us.

Experiences:

What unexpected encounter helps you see an interruption as an opportunity to serve?
What experience reveals a need you initially overlook?
How does an interaction with a neighbor, coworker, family member, or stranger illustrate a divine appointment?
What habits or distractions make it harder for you to notice people, and what helps you become more attentive?

Follow Spiritual Promptings and Put Compassion Into Action

President Farnes’s encounter with an anxious missionary illustrates how a prompting to look again opens the way for practical help. He and his wife offer reassurance and assistance throughout the missionary’s journey. The experience shows that meaningful ministering often begins with simple actions directed toward the person immediately before us.

But the Spirit prompted me to look again.

What we did for that elder didn’t require much of us, but this ordinary encounter became a divine appointment we will always treasure.

All we had to do was see the person God had placed in our path, look with compassion rather than judgment, and then act.

Brothers and sisters, let us pray every day for eyes to see the divine appointments God places before us!

Let us put compassion into action and minister to the person in front of us.

Key Points:

The Spirit can prompt us to reconsider someone we initially overlook.
Compassion rather than judgment helps us understand another person’s circumstances.
Simple reassurance and practical assistance can relieve fear and loneliness.
The airport experience illustrates attentiveness that continues as the missionary’s needs change.
Daily prayer for eyes to see prepares us to recognize opportunities to minister.
Christlike compassion includes acting, not merely noticing or feeling concern.

Experiences:

What experience illustrates a prompting to look again, ask a question, or offer help?
When does learning about someone’s circumstances replace your initial judgment with compassion?
What simple act of practical help makes a meaningful difference to you or someone you know?
What experience shows the value of staying attentive as another person’s needs change?
How does praying for opportunities to serve influence what you notice during an ordinary day?