Daily Scriptures Giving Me Daily Lessons

 
Obviously I didn't post a whole lot about it, but I have been doing better with my daily spiritual check-ins. I decided in the rush of my world right now, checking in with my Lord is the best way for me to fit that spirituality into my every day. So whenever I think of it and make the time (usually sometime in the morning after my older kids are at school) I read the Book of Mormon and continue my study. Once a week I've started into the "ponderize" challenge and hang a new scripture on the wall, which is selected at random, actually. I turn to a random page in my triple combination and read the page and choose a scripture. If I happen to randomly turn to the Topical Guide or some kind of reference page, I randomly place a finger somewhere and look up that reference. Doing this, I have been surprised at how much I see God's hand in the selections. I have been guided to the same page more than once and realized that another scripture on that page was what I should have selected in the first place. And I have been guided to a scripture along the same lessons of what I had been gaining from my scripture study. I love how God's hand is in everything when I'm trying my best to follow Him.

I've been gaining more self-acceptance lately through different things I have been doing. I'm dressing better, feeling better, and it's awesome. I'm embracing my strengths and letting myself feel what I feel and that's awesome too. But I've been struggling especially with media addiction lately. I cannot stay off Facebook and it's really started to bug me. I challenge myself to stay away and still have found myself there again. I haven't had the app on my phone forever, but I still go the long route to look it up on my internet app. It's better than what it could be, but I know I am not being present for my kids. But over the last couple weeks, in which I have been getting my ponderize scriptures about not laboring for things without worth and avoiding idleness, I've gotten more busy and that's helped me.

In 2 Nephi it describes the Nephites as being taught to work with their hands and value the joys of hard work and productivity. It contrasts with describing the Lamanites and an idle and lazy people. Then it says that the Nephites lived after the manner of happiness. It struck me that the manner of happiness in life is finding joy in hard work. I felt like the message was for me and that I need to really get off my duff in serving my family and doing things for my husband and stuff and then I will find the most happiness and joy. It's true to my nature to find joy in being busy with good things. I get depressed with I'm stuck in the rut of laziness.

Scripture study seriously helps me and I feel a big difference when I'm working to include that in my daily routine. But sometimes I miss out on that. But I don't get down about it. I'm getting it in more often than not and that's a good thing. I'll just keep trying my best to do what I can.

The other thing I'm doing to avoid idleness is going back to school in January. PHEW! Big step, but I feel right about seeking those last few steps to my degree and see where life takes me after that. Talk about getting more productive! Should be interesting but I'm determined.

On another note, my husband had been doing well but lost his recovery journal and then when I went out of town he had the biggest slip in a long time. I feel nothing but love and sorrow for him now and I'm so glad I can separate my happiness from his challenges. I truly know he can pull up from this one because I know he can.

Breaking Summer Break

 

This may be an odd time for new beginnings, but summer ending is a new beginning for me.

I think I took summer break literally. My last post was in April! Well, it's been busy. Lots of summer trips and family reunions, but I decided I better post something today and try to get back into a better habit of thinking of the Lord more.

After having a baby, and as I am nursing, I have fallen off the wagon with my media addiction. Facebook has seemed to take over a lot of my time lately because when I sit down to nurse it's idle time that has become filled with waste. Well, now at the end of the summer with school starting it's time to break my summer break habits and renew my goals.

For a while I did well reading scriptures during my idle time. If you can believe it, I managed to read the Book of Mormon in the time it was translated, responding to this challenge I saw around General Conference in April. It was a different experience to just read it straight through without stopping. It felt like reading a story and I followed the characters and happenings a lot better than I ever have before. It was easier to pick up on the history of the book and identify the places where Mormon cuts in to paraphrase or make a statement before going on. In my mind's eye I was able to watch events as he described them, and then visualize him writing at the places where he broke in. It was a different way of viewing the book than I ever have.

But I haven't been reading much since I finished in June. I need to come up with another studying technique to get me involved in the book again in another new way.

Over the month of July, I was too incredibly busy either traveling or getting ready to travel or recovering from traveling. It was a busy month! But I am happy to report my progress in my own self gratification addiction is going well and I haven't slipped since my last report on slipping. Which means it's been almost another year. Yes, shy a month or so. But it's been about two years since I began my recovery for that addiction in particular and I'm doing so much better! I feel freed from it, which is a beautiful thing. My husband has been having many slips lately, though, and we haven't been able to figure it out. What's strange for him is that it always seems to just catch him off guard. He's removed features on his phone again to safeguard things. I'm just hoping he can get on top of things again.

My media addiction has evolved from something where I was completely absorbed, into simply a waste of time and a laziness trap. So I am not sure if it's the same kind of addiction as before. I'm not completely losing myself in movies or fantasies as I did before, getting a high as I've called it. To me, it was a high because I would have crashes after coming out of my fantasies and I would want to re-enter another fantasy as a way to escape life. That was very unhealthy and I'm glad I have come out of that. I've missed it a little, however. Movies don't hold me in the way they used to. I have to remind myself that this is a good thing.

Now I think it's more a case of laziness and waste of time. I remember hearing Elder Scott say something about that in one of his conference talks because it struck me so much hearing him say those words. His voice echoes in my mind about a waste of time.

Here's to new beginnings at the end of the summer!

Pray without Ceasing, Follow His Will, Step 11 Cont

If I do my part,  the Lord will do the rest.   The Lord is near when I draw near to Him.  If I can make this my daily priority to draw near to the Lord in prayer, then He will be with me always in everything I do.

Pray without ceasing.

I need to put this as a plaque in my wall.  One way to pray always is to be grateful always, for everything,  even things I don't understand.

I just read The Hiding Place,  which follows Carrie Ten Bloom through her experiences during WWII. There is a part in it when she is in the concentration camp and her sister tells her they should give thanks to the Lord for the fleas.  She couldn't fathom a reason to thank the Lord for that,  but her sister insisted that everything the Lord gives is given for His wise purposes.

Later on they discover that the reason they have enough privacy in a certain area for gospel studies and spiritual sharing is because the Nazi soldiers wouldn't go in on account of the fleas! At that time she was able to grasp the Lord's divine purpose and she could say they were a blessing.

I love so much about that book because it has such great examples of faith and truth that pierce to the heart.

But it's true that sometimes we may not see the Lord's purpose in "blessing" us with His "fleas" but we can have the faith to know He has a divine purpose in everything He gives us and we can be grateful for it all.

It's hard to do sometimes.

I love that abstinence is described in step 11 as a form of fasting.  Fasting is denying the natural man and withstanding physical desires. So is abstinence!

Abstinence can increase our spirituality and ability to receive guidance and direction through revelation. And studying scriptures consistently also furthers that sensitivity to the spirit.  We can "learn the language" of the scriptures by studying them every day. Verses can have new and different meanings to each person, each time it's read,  if we are open to allow the spirit to teach us.

One more thing I thought about today with step 11 is that I must acknowledge Him in every good thing I do in this world. Because as I do good,  I am doing His work,  not mine.

Understanding this helps me to understand something I was told as a teen and I didn't understand. We know Christ is the creator of the world because He did the creating,  however I was told that Heavenly Father really created the world through Christ. I never understood that until now.  But really,  Christ was doing Heavenly Father's work! He was being God's hands. I can too.

I must submit to His will so I can be His hands and do great things according to His plan for me. 

Step 3: Trust in God

 

Decide to turn your will and your life over to the care of God the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Step 3 Reading

I used to think that obeying rules gave limitations to what I could do.  It narrows the way in a way that felt like I was being held back.  But then I realized submission to God's will gives one more freedom of choice, freeing you from addiction.  Freedom is used in the reading.  Because yes, it narrows the way, but so life is easier.  It makes the pathway to happiness easier to see.  When you stray off the path, you find darkness and loss, selfishness and dissatisfaction, greed and envy, lust and sadness.  In the darkness, you feel stuck and weighed down.  But staying on that path is where the light is and where you are free to live happily and make choices where you can see, because it's light.

Here is a poem that helps illustrate this concept:

The Disobedient Kite

I once went flying with my master
He took me out on a windy day
He let me grow higher and higher
As the wind pulled me up and away

I pulled on the string he had tethered
Wishing to climb greater heights
I beckoned him softly as to whether
He'd give me my freedom in flight.

He shook his head at my imploring
Stating the string held me up
'But the string just anchors my exploring!'
So I asked again, I wouldn't let up.

Finally he said he would show me
The value in rules he had set
And he cut at the string from below me
Exulted, I leaned, the wind swept

But the soaring expected then faulted
And broken, I began the fall
For the connection I'd found as a burden
Was what held me up high after all. 

 I find it interesting that the word "anchor" is used negatively in this poem.  When in this scripture it's used as a good thing: "Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with ^asurety ^bhope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which ^chope cometh of ^dfaith, maketh an ^eanchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in ^fgood works, being led to ^gglorify God." Ether 12:4

Even in just the use of that one word, it illustrates how perspective changes meaning a great deal.  We may think of the anchor as holding down the ship so it cannot go.  Then again, the anchor in a ship is what keeps it safe and steadfast against the storms.

In step 3 we are deciding to act for ourselves by following the Lord to escape the chains of addiction, and be freed.  Regardless of others, I choose my actions.  And if I choose to follow the Lord's will for me every single day, I will be led into happiness.  Sometimes this can be hard, but it also states that all it takes is for us "to open the door to go just a little bit."

I've found that all it takes is just a little bit.  As soon as I try a little tiny bit, the Lord encircles me in His love and encouragement.  He is always there!  Sometimes I have thought that I wanted Him to give up on me because I thought it would just be easier if I gave up and hated myself and gave in to my weaknesses.  But He didn't.  He never does!  He will always be there, even though we are inconsistent and make mistakes and have draw-backs.

His healing power is safe.  I love that "safety of following His way."  But it has to be all!  We have to submit everything.  Our entire will and life to Him, and continually.  It's not something that happens all at once.  I can decide now to do this, and then tomorrow I will have to decide again.  I might have to decide again in an hour, in a moment.  The key is to make a consistent effort to continually submit my will to the Lord's, taking "one day at a time."

"God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

I am in charge of me.  I choose the way I react to every thing that happens to me or around me every day.  No matter what happens, I am in charge of how I react.  If somebody says something rude, I don't have to get angry.  If I feel judged, I don't have to feel worthless.  If I don't do something perfectly, I don't have to get discouraged.  I can choose happiness.

Easier said then done.

But "with God nothing shall be impossible."

Thank God for what you have, Trust God for what you need.

I really want to let God direct my life, but I think my problem is sometimes I want to pick and choose when I allow His influence in my life, when I should have this as a constant.  What prevents me is that other desire for carnal things, not in agreement to God's will.  I must reconcile myself to the will of God and not to the flesh.

To do this, I'm going to follow these steps I set for myself in this post.

Deliverance in His Word

"They were in captivity,  and again the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by the power of his Word" Alma 5:5

I must commit to studying the Scriptures or listening or reading conference talks every single day because by the power of His word, I will be freed.

The healing power of Christ can heal me emotionally and spiritually if I turn to my savior for his living guidance and strength.  He has a perfect love for me that no person on earth can offer.  It is my need,  not just my want,  to be redeemed,  liberated,  and transformed by the power of Christ in my life.  It is essential for happiness.

There are so many things in life beyond my control.  But He is in control.  He cannot change human choice,  and so wickedness and sin exist and hurt and suffering occur.  He doesn't stop that,  but He will ease the burden so it is not impossible to bear.  He can take in all suffering-He has taken all the suffering of the World upon His shoulders. So that we can be uplifted and strengthened in this world of sadness.  There can be peace inside the storms and afflictions of the World.

Faith is that candle that makes the darkness flee and brings hope and peace.  Christ did this for me. It is already done.  He is waiting for us to just turn and let Him take away our burdens.  All we must do is let Him.