Today's Favorite Verse: Genesis 47:19

Today's Favorite Verse: Genesis 47:19

"Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate."

I pondered on the famine in Egypt and Canaan. It doesn't appear that the dream of Pharaoh was kept a secret from anyone. The people must have seen Joseph building granaries and storing food for those seven years of plenty. I'm sure some must have thought it was foolishness for him to do this. Then when the famine came the people that thought Joseph foolish came and begged for food. Instead of having put something away to provide for themselves they expected the rulers to take care of them. They gave Joseph all their money, then their cattle, finally their land and then themselves. They put themselves into bondage because they did not heed the words of a prophet. This is a big lesson in being self-reliant and how it keeps us from bondage. This makes me think of a talk by President Russell M. Nelson

"The adversary never stops attacking. So, we can never stop preparing! The more self-reliant we are—temporally, emotionally, and spiritually—the more prepared we are to thwart Satan’s relentless assaults.

I promise that as we create places of security, prepare our minds to be faithful to God, and never stop preparing, God will bless us. He will “deliver us; yea, insomuch that he [will] speak peace to our souls, and [will] grant unto us great faith, and … cause us that we [can] hope for our deliverance in him.”

(Russell M. Nelson, "Embrace the Future with Faith", Oct 2020 General Conference)

Day 2206