"My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:
For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man."
Proverbs 3:1-4
This is a good reminder about obedience, which we try to skirt around too often, thinking that we can pick and choose which commandments that we want to obey, or that just breaking a couple of them won't be too bad.
To me it seems like a recipe. God gives us the recipe for life and peace, and if we put in one sixth of the ingredients, are we going to get the result promised? By his grace, we might get a tiny part, but if we don't follow the recipe, we can't get the result. It isn't about God being too strict or not loving us... it is just plain impossible to get chocolate chip cookies if you leave out half the ingredients, and substitute in some mudballs or something instead of chocolate chips. You might get something that looks similar, but you aren't going to want to eat them.
One of the reasons that God tells us that he will draw near to us as we draw near to him (D&C 88:63) isn't, again, because God doesn't want to be close to us, but because we can't hear his spirit if we aren't listening. We can't build Zion with Tinker Toys. Just like any recipe, or plan, or blueprint, it takes effort and either following exact instructions, or at least having enough experience and knowledge of what you are creating and the proper materials to know where you fit in to the overall plan so you can make things better and not worse. And we aren't going to ever get to that stage if we don't have God's law written in our hearts.
Today, let's rethink our stance on obedience. The word can feel restrictive and limiting... but God isn't trying to take away our personalities or prevent improvisation at all. He asks us to be "anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [our] own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness" (D&C 58:27). All he wants to do is give us the skills that we need, and make sure that we aren't poisoning ourselves. Let's listen to him, and learn how to follow a recipe and at least what the ingredients are for *before* we start making up our own desserts.
For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man."
Proverbs 3:1-4
This is a good reminder about obedience, which we try to skirt around too often, thinking that we can pick and choose which commandments that we want to obey, or that just breaking a couple of them won't be too bad.
To me it seems like a recipe. God gives us the recipe for life and peace, and if we put in one sixth of the ingredients, are we going to get the result promised? By his grace, we might get a tiny part, but if we don't follow the recipe, we can't get the result. It isn't about God being too strict or not loving us... it is just plain impossible to get chocolate chip cookies if you leave out half the ingredients, and substitute in some mudballs or something instead of chocolate chips. You might get something that looks similar, but you aren't going to want to eat them.
One of the reasons that God tells us that he will draw near to us as we draw near to him (D&C 88:63) isn't, again, because God doesn't want to be close to us, but because we can't hear his spirit if we aren't listening. We can't build Zion with Tinker Toys. Just like any recipe, or plan, or blueprint, it takes effort and either following exact instructions, or at least having enough experience and knowledge of what you are creating and the proper materials to know where you fit in to the overall plan so you can make things better and not worse. And we aren't going to ever get to that stage if we don't have God's law written in our hearts.
Today, let's rethink our stance on obedience. The word can feel restrictive and limiting... but God isn't trying to take away our personalities or prevent improvisation at all. He asks us to be "anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [our] own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness" (D&C 58:27). All he wants to do is give us the skills that we need, and make sure that we aren't poisoning ourselves. Let's listen to him, and learn how to follow a recipe and at least what the ingredients are for *before* we start making up our own desserts.
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