King Benjamin

I love listening to or reading about King Benjamin's talk to his people. I was reminded again this week about how we are all beggars. We have had several beggars set up on the street corners lately here in Idaho Falls. I saw one of them smoking the other day and was tempted to think that if I gave him money, he would probably buy cigarettes. I have a tendency to judge the motives of these people and try to decide how needy they really are and wonder why they don't just get a job. King Benjamin teaches that it is not my place to judge. I cannot always stop in the middle of a busy intersection to give a beggar some money but I am going to try much harder not to be critical or judgmental. As the scriptures remind us, "With what judgement ye judge, ye will also be judged". Maybe in God's eyes, I am just as needy and helpless as those beggars on the street corners!

Agency

I have been pondering agency lately and would like to share a few thoughts, although it does not have to do specifically with what I am reading in the Book of Mormon. I was listening to a CD with songs from the 2005 primary program the other day and there was a phrase that stuck out to me from the song Agency which was an Ensign song picked for that year. IT goes something like, "I will use my agency to choose the right today." Now this may seem simple, but I was struck with the thought as I listened; my agency is a tool. It is something that I have been given to help me return to my Father. I always had viewed agency in the past a gift, or even a privilege, but never as a tool.

Amazingly, I was flipping through my gospel principles manual last night and turned to lesson 4, a lesson I had missed and never read, so I decided to take a few minutes and look over it. It is entitled Freedom to Choose. (Do you think Heavenly Father is trying to tell me something?) The following paragraph jumped out at me.

Agency makes our life on earth a period of testing. When planning the mortal creation of his children, God said, 'We will prove them herewith to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their Gos shall command them.'

I have been taught before that this life is a test, but as I read this paragraph, I viewed things in a way I never had before. I think that someimes rather than trying to excell at keeping the commandments and living righteously, I just try and glide by. I would never do this on a test for school or personal training, etc. My nature is to excel. The tool I can use to excel on the test of life is agency. Every day I am faced with dozens of choices; how to spend my time, how to treat my family, am I going to go visitng teaching, etc. Sometimes I choose good things, but not the best things and sometimes I make downright poor choices. The key word being my. Agency means not only that we are able to make choices, but that we must own them and be graded on them!!!! I pray that I will get an A and that I will be able to hear the words, "Well done thou good and faithful servant."

The Vineyard (Annabelle)

For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive-tree... jacob 5:3. In this chapter there is a vineyard, olive-tree, a master, and a servant. In the vineyard there is good soil and bad soil. The vineyard represents the world. There are some places better set up for the teaching of the gospel than others. Such as the promised land/the americas. The olive-tree is also the world. At first it brings forth good fruit, representing that the gospel is on the Earth. It begans to decay, the gospel is still on the Earth but not as much. The master and the servant try to prune the tree and nourish it for some time. Then they try to graft in branches from another tree. The tree starts to bring forth evil fruit, none of it is good, the gospel is no longer on the Earth. The branches have over come the roots of the olive tree, the gospel has been totally removed from the Earth. They yet again try to save the tree. This time they graft in branches from the mother tree. It starts to bring forth good fruit, the gospel has been restored to the Earth. Then it talks about how after a long time of good fruit the bad will come into the vineyard yet again, and he will gather up the good and the bad branches, and preserve the good branches, while he will burn the bad branches in a fire.

He Will Take Upon Him the Pains of His People

I had an experience this week that helped enlighten me about the atonement. We read in Alma chapter 7 how the Son of God would take upon him the pains and sicknesses and infirmities and sins of His people. We sometimes focus mostly on Him taking on Himself our sins, but he also took upon Himself our pains and sicknesses and infirmities.

Here's my experience. Monday Michael was driving from Boise to Logan for a very important modeling job. He had told me before that being late to these things was not even an option so he always gave himself plenty of time. I learned from Mom that Michael's tire blew out near Mountain Home. He called Mom to express how distraught he was by the whole ordeal - not only was there the expense of the repair, but the problem would delay him enough that he would be late to his appointment. I felt so bad for Michael. In fact, I sometimes think when our children are in distress, the parents feel it worse than the children.

Then I made the connection. Just as I felt so bad for Michael, even though the experience wasn't happening to me, the Savior has suffered that same pain for all of us. Not only that, he took upon himself Michael's pain and my pain, and multiply that by millions, because the Savior has experienced the pain and suffering of every human being who has lived, who is now living and who will yet live upon the earth. He did it all the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross. The magnitude of what Jesus Christ did for us through the atonement struck me by that simple comparison.

Not only did He do it, but he did it willingly. In addition, we don't even need to bear our burdens, because if we are suffering in mind or spirit he invites us to "cast our burden upon the Lord and he will sustain thee." I am, and forever will be so grateful for the atoning sacrifice of our Lord, Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

I was listening to Enos today and had an interesting thought. When Enos first prayed, it was for himself. After his sins had been forgiven, he prayed for his people. Finally, he prayed for his enemies. I think that the more sin we have in our lives, the more self-centered we are. As we become more righteous, we begin to turn outward and think more about others, It is only when we are extremely righteous that our hearts are turned to our enemies. Only then, are we truly Christ-like. We can pray, as Christ did on the cross, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do".

Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness

As I've been pondering certain phrases verses that especially impress me in The Book of Mormon I had some thoughts about Moroni 10:32 which begins:

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness..." I thought, to "deny" ourselves of something is not to partake of something that may be tempting. For example we might "deny" ourselves of that second piece of cake. It may be satisfying for the moment but it's not good for us. So to deny ourselves of all ungodliness would mean not doing anything that would be contrary to what God would do, no matter how tempting it is. Now, I think most of us do a good job at denying ourselves of ungodliness when it comes to big things, like in the Ten Commandments - we don't murder or steal or those kinds of things.

But what about things that might not seem so major. What about things like envy, jealousy,

laziness, anger, hate, forgetting to say prayers, not being grateful. The list goes on. My conclusion is that as I go throughout daily life I need to be more mindful of things I do or say or think that would not be what God would do, and do a better job of denying myself of all ungodliness.