John 8:29 touched my heart, and I need to memorize it. Jesus says, ...the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
If I could get to the point that I could always say within myself, "I do always those things that please Him", I would be very happy. I know He would bless me with His Spirit, and I would know that He had not left me alone. It's very similar to the sacrament prayer. If I do always remember Him, He will give me His Spirit to be with me.
Every day, every hour, I need to think about these words and see if I can still say them honestly: I do always those things that please Him.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Keep Going
I've been thinking lately about maintenance. By that, I mean keeping the momentum, not sliding backward. It first came up in reference to exercise. Carma and Vic and I go to the gym and are trying to get fit. I try to push myself to make progress each time, but as I watch some weight loss TV shows, I can see that I could do much more, work much harder. Whereas I work out for less than an hour, they work for 3 or 4 hours a day. Sometimes they cry from the exertion and pain. As I thought about it, I told Carma that I'm going to stop feeling guilty if I don't ache the next day from sore muscles. I do push hard, but I'm not really trying to lose weight. Neither am I trying to become muscle-bound. I'm simply trying to keep from losing muscle mass in my old age. I want to be healthy, vibrant and strong, with no wheelchair looming in my future. In a word, I'm trying to maintain.
Then the same word came to mind with my housekeeping. I've had a sudden burst of housecleaning energy. Housecleaning has always been a burden for me, been low in my priorities, with the logical result that my house was usually a mess. Even in the last few years with no kids around, it was rarely really clean -- just not total chaos.
I can't say what really spurred this change, but I think it started with a chance cleaning of all my cabinet fronts in the kitchen. I hadn't intended to scrub all the cabinet doors, just to wipe off a drip. But once I got started, the next door needed washing too, and before I knew it they were all clean. Then I found a website where parents can assign children chores, and the kids go there and mark off what they've done to earn rewards. So I assigned myself some morning and evening chores, keeping it simple, and would go in and mark them as done and feel a great deal of satisfaction. I only started with 2 or 3 chores night and morning and was amazed at the fact that wiping of all the kitchen counters and cleaning out the sink night and morning kept the kitchen quite clean. Soon I added a system I worked out a few years ago for cleaning the whole house by zones over the course of a month, which system I spent a lot of time working out, but never really stayed with it. Well, this time I've stayed with it for over a month, quite religiously, to the point that I'm now back to the same zone I started with. Which leads me to maintaining.
A month ago I did some in-depth cleaning in the kitchen. But this time around, I mostly just need to do wipe-downs of the same areas to keep them clean, rather than the deep scrubbing that was required the first time around. I'm learning to maintain the progress I've made.
But in spiritual matters, I need to do more than maintain. In Ether 2:7 the Lord says: And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.
The Lord doesn't want us to get part way to the promised land and then camp out in the wilderness, even if it's a lovely wilderness. He doesn't want us to tread water. Treading water isn't drowning, as I was when I wasn't exercising at all, or rarely cleaning. It's maintaining. It's neither moving forward or backward. But in order to reach the promised land, we need to push and push and progress and improve and draw nearer to our Savior every day. Then we can reach the promised land, which is choice above all other lands, which the Lord has preserved for us if we're a righteous people.
Then the same word came to mind with my housekeeping. I've had a sudden burst of housecleaning energy. Housecleaning has always been a burden for me, been low in my priorities, with the logical result that my house was usually a mess. Even in the last few years with no kids around, it was rarely really clean -- just not total chaos.
I can't say what really spurred this change, but I think it started with a chance cleaning of all my cabinet fronts in the kitchen. I hadn't intended to scrub all the cabinet doors, just to wipe off a drip. But once I got started, the next door needed washing too, and before I knew it they were all clean. Then I found a website where parents can assign children chores, and the kids go there and mark off what they've done to earn rewards. So I assigned myself some morning and evening chores, keeping it simple, and would go in and mark them as done and feel a great deal of satisfaction. I only started with 2 or 3 chores night and morning and was amazed at the fact that wiping of all the kitchen counters and cleaning out the sink night and morning kept the kitchen quite clean. Soon I added a system I worked out a few years ago for cleaning the whole house by zones over the course of a month, which system I spent a lot of time working out, but never really stayed with it. Well, this time I've stayed with it for over a month, quite religiously, to the point that I'm now back to the same zone I started with. Which leads me to maintaining.
A month ago I did some in-depth cleaning in the kitchen. But this time around, I mostly just need to do wipe-downs of the same areas to keep them clean, rather than the deep scrubbing that was required the first time around. I'm learning to maintain the progress I've made.
But in spiritual matters, I need to do more than maintain. In Ether 2:7 the Lord says: And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.
The Lord doesn't want us to get part way to the promised land and then camp out in the wilderness, even if it's a lovely wilderness. He doesn't want us to tread water. Treading water isn't drowning, as I was when I wasn't exercising at all, or rarely cleaning. It's maintaining. It's neither moving forward or backward. But in order to reach the promised land, we need to push and push and progress and improve and draw nearer to our Savior every day. Then we can reach the promised land, which is choice above all other lands, which the Lord has preserved for us if we're a righteous people.
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