Today's Favorite Verse: Psalms 84:1-2
"How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."
The hardest part of the winter is my temple attendance suffers. There is such a longing for spring when I spend more time in the temple. Until then I spend more time at home working on my family history, but its really not the same.
Today's Favorite Verse: Psalms 81:11-12
"But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels."
I pondered on being left to walk in my own counsel. There are some areas I might do fine in, but I cannot know all things. Before I read my scriptures I happened to watch a video on cutting up a chicken. I can learn from others things that are helpful. But, if I was left alone to follow my lusts and my own counsel it would become hollow, especially in times of trouble. It reminded me of the articles I read sometimes where people write about an issue or situation they have and others give them feedback or advice. I cannot tell you how many times the advice is through the eyes of the world, and lack any compassion or charity. Eventually, if one followed the world's advice that life would get hollow, devoid of friends and a warm heart. Oh, they would have won are argument, but what really does that leave them with? I am grateful I can turn to the Lord for wisdom and guidance.
Today's Favorite Verse: Psalms 77:2
"In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted."
I pondered on how we need to seek the Lord in good times too. If we only reach out in times of trouble and despair, and haven't developed a relationship with God, how quick will He answer us? It made me reflect on how important it is to pray daily in gratitude for all God has blessed us with. To acknowledge His hand in our lives and our dependency on him.
Today's Favorite Verse: Psalms 73:3
"For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked."
I sat and had to wack my brain on where I had heard a story about the wicked being prosperous. I knew it was rather recent. Then I recalled, it was at the funeral of President Jeffrey R Holland the other day by his son Matthew. This is a transcript of the parable his father had related to him and his family.
"Children, there was once a diligent farmer who tried to do everything right. He never worked on Sunday. He always paid his tithing. He regularly served others with kindness and generosity. But, come October, his fall harvest was paltry.
By contrast, his neighbor was a vain and worldly man. He worked every Sunday. He hoarded every dollar he ever made. He acquired additional lands through questionable means. Yet, come fall, the worldly farmer enjoyed a bumper crop.
In his vanity, the worldly farmer gloated about this to his poor neighbor.
At this point in the story, my father’s voice broke, and tears started to trickle down his face as he continued: “The righteous farmer replied, God does not settle His accounts in October.”
Whatever other virtues my father had, the greatest source of his sweeping, righteous influence was his faith—his deep, rock-ribbed conviction that Jesus Christ is always and forever the unimaginably generous “rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Nothing, absolutely nothing, could persuade him that God was anything other than a high priest of good things to come, and that the restored gospel was a true gospel of happy endings, particularly for those who do their best to keep the commandments, receive their priesthood ordinances, and honor their eternal covenants.
Such faith is the thing we all most need, and the thing he most wanted to share."
I just loved that phrase "God does not settle His accounts in October."
