He Gave Us Our Riches

Samuel the Lamanite is preaching to the Nephites, and tells them that one day soon they will say: "O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches. . ." (Helaman 13:33)

Our riches come from the Lord.  He gives them to us as both a blessing and a test.  He blesses us for our obedience, and He tests us to see if we will stay faithful to Him even though our lives are comfortable.  But we must remember Him who gave us those riches, and use them to bless others and to do good, not for our own selfish desires.

Sometimes we are fond of saying that this scripture doesn't apply to us because we aren't rich.  But we are!  We are SO rich!  We have enough to eat.  We have homes with electricity and heat and air conditioning and comfortable furniture.  We have cars to get us where we want to go.  We have dear families who love us.  And we have the Gospel which blesses our lives in ways we rarely begin to imagine!  It's so easy to forget all of that and to pine for newer cars or bigger houses or more toys.

Counting our blessings is one way of remembering the Lord.  We need to remember to LOOK for the blessings, to notice not only the material ones, but the spiritual ones.  We all have so many riches!