Today's Favorite Verse: Psalms 150:6

Today's Favorite Verse: Psalms 150:6

"Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD."

I pondered on every creature praising the Lord. This made me think of the dust of the earth, and how it is even more obedient than we.

"O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.

For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God."

(Helaman 12:7-8)

Then I realized the dust is not a living thing, or is it? Man was formed from the dust of the earth, and then God breathed life into it.

"And I, the LORD God, formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also."

(Genesis 2:8)

Brigham Young said, “There is life in all matter, throughout the vast extent of all the eternities; it is in the rock, the sand, the dust, in water, air, the gases, and, in short, in every description and organization of matter, whether it be solid, liquid, or gaseous.” When God formed man from the dust of the ground, before he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, man’s body was alive with light and spirit which had come from mother earth’s living matter (see Moses 3:7). He then breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, which was the unique intelligence we also call spirit (see Moses 3:7 and Abraham 3:22). When a man dies, his spirit intelligence separates from his body, but there is still life in his body, which returns to the dust of the earth (see Genesis 3:19).

(J. Michael Hunter, "The Living Earth: A Nineteenth-Century Latter-Day Saint Perspective", page 2, Brigham Young University, Our Stewardship: Perspectives on Nature Symposium, 28 Feb 2004)

Day 2787