"Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth."
Isaiah 28:22
This seems like a tough one. So much of our society seems to be about mockery. Lots of our humor is based on it, and it is well accepted to mock certain groups of people or certain types of people. Mockers are warned about in several other places in the scriptures as well (for example Proverbs 17:5, Jude 1:18, 1 Nephi 8:27, Alma 5:30-31), but by far the worst kind of mockery is the mockery of God (hint: that doesn't turn out well).
Although it is admittedly a challenge to change the way we think, let's take a step back today and think about what we are saying. Who are we mocking in our everyday speech? If other people, that's bad, but if also God, even worse. We definitely don't want that sort of thing to turn back to us in the restoration of all things. Let's ask God to notice when we are mocking, and to work to treat people not just as we would want to be treated, because sometimes we beat ourselves up, but let's also think about how we treat our favorite people... how we show our love by the different ways we talk to them and have more patience and belief in their good intentions. Let's work on treating people that way, even in our generic comments. As we sincerely work on learning to love others, God will be with us, and help us to become the best people that we can be.
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