Day 42 Opposition in All Things

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I am cheering for your every success. Welcome to day 42.

We are in the middle of 2 Nephi chapter 2 today. And I got to tell you, chapter 2 is some incredibly deep doctrine. It's worth diving into on your own time and really digging into some of these verses.

We're only going to choose one, of course, inside of today. But this is Lehi testifying of redemption coming through the Messiah. He's going to talk about the importance of agency in all of our lives.

He's going to talk about Adam and Eve and what happened with the Fall. And he's going to talk about how we have choice in our lives and the importance of choosing all of these things. This is an incredible chapter.

And so today, on your 365-day journey, you're going to read 2 Nephi 2, verses 8 through 19. And let's get straight into today's verse. And today and tomorrow are going to be a little bit of a back-to-back.

And we're going to piece together an idea on the two of them together. So today's verse is verse 11. And in verse 11, Lehi teaches us this: "For it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things.

If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one. Wherefore, if it should be one body, it must needs remain as dead, having no life, neither death, nor corruption, nor incorruption, happiness, nor misery, neither sense, nor insensibility." Now, this may come across inside of here, going, "What are we talking about?

There's a 'yes' or 'no,' or what do we have here? Uh-huh. Where are we going?" And what I want to introduce in this one is the Law of Polarity—a universal law known as the Law of Polarity.

Polarity tells us that there must be opposition in everything that happens. And what I want to encourage you to consider is that opposition is not necessarily a bad thing. As it mentions here, there's the bad side of opposition and then there's the positive side.

There's happiness and there's misery. And if you think about it, anything we choose to do in our lives comes with both of them typically. If I wanted to go and work out, for example, well, the positive side that's going to come from my working out is my muscles are going to build.

I'm going to feel stronger. I'm going to feel healthier. And—and not "but"—and I'm also going to be sore.

My muscles are going to hurt. And they're actually going to kind of break down in order to build up, right? There's a polarity that happens inside of my workouts.

If we were to consider what it's like to build a relationship with someone, whether that's a friendship or whether that's a spouse or someone that you have a deeper relationship with, there's the positive side of that relationship, getting to know them, the laughing, the spending time together. And then there's the challenging side of that relationship, the difficulties, maybe even heartbreaks. One of my favorite quotes comes from the personal development realm with Napoleon Hill, and it goes somewhere along the lines.

I don't have it pulled up in front of me directly, but "every failure comes with it an equivalent seed of opportunity." There's that Law of Polarity coming into play. Our challenges can also turn into our blessings and our benefits. So that's the first part of the Law of Polarity that I want to bring into play today is that verse 11.

And I hope that you realize that as you face challenges in your life, Law of Polarity is going to tell you, and opposition is going to tell you, that there's another side to that coin. And as we face the upsides of our lives, understand that there's another side to that coin. Not that we should be afraid of the downside when we're experiencing the upsides, but it does help us to consider that when we're facing the downsides, there's an upside coming too.

Think about that for a little bit and see what you come up with on your own as you read the verses in today's assignment. That's all for today, my friends. Remember that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt.

I'll be here tomorrow. I hope you are too.