Day 107 Leaning into Contention and the Evil Spirit

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'm cheering for your every success. Welcome to day 107 on our path through the Book of Mormon.

And today we're going to be rolling through Mosiah chapter two. I hope you're enjoying King Benjamin's teachings here. They are so illustrative and they are so direct.

And I love his counsel in my life. Today we're going to read Mosiah chapter 2, verses 22 to 36. Almost finishing the chapter.

You could sneak in those last ones if you want and cut off tomorrow's reading just a little bit, but 22 to 36 is where we're going to focus. Today our scripture comes a little bit of a different thought, but that's the idea behind Savory Salt, isn't it? We're going to read Mosiah chapter 2, verse 32 together.

But O my people, beware lest there shall arise contentions among you, and ye list to obey the evil spirit which was spoken of by my father Mosiah. This one's an interesting one because we have this beware lest there shall arise contentions among you. Contention, arguments, struggles with each other, disagreements.

Contention seems to be something that surrounds us every day, everywhere. We turn on the TV and we see opposing sides contending with each other. We see physical bouts.

We see sports in contention. Sometimes in a good sportsmanship style and other times in mean contention. I think King Benjamin has a warning here for us all when it comes to contentions because the next part of it is what's interesting to me and what stood out.

You see, he says, and ye list to obey the evil spirit. I needed to look up list to obey a little bit and spend some time looking at what that might mean. And I'd encourage you to look at list to obey and see what kind of things you can find with it.

One of them said that list could just be a shortened version of listen, that you listen to obey the evil spirit. But another one really has me thinking, I wanted to share it with you. One of them said that one of the definitions, older definition of list, is like the way that boats list to one side.

They lean to one side. And the leaning and listing to one side also implied that there a leaning through choice towards one side. And it makes me read this a little bit differently.

It almost that you leaning in to obey the evil spirit. You actually have a kind of a desire to lean in to obey that evil spirit. And it got me thinking about a time in my life when I, if I just speak honestly here for a second, I wanted the contention.

I wanted the argument. I wanted the wits. I wanted the challenge of my wit against yours.

I didn't do it necessarily to cause argumentative contention or to cause hurt feelings amongst others, but in my naivety, there were times where I did hurt feelings because of that contention. I pushed too far and my arguments became too aggressive for others. It's really given me an interesting pause because it's made me wonder if my desire for contention and my desire for the argument was perhaps somewhat linked to leaning into my obeying the evil spirit there.

Perhaps I was leaning in, I was looking for the contention in a way that drove the spirit further from my life. And I hope today that I can be better aware of the possible contentions ahead of me and seek to prevent those or seek to stay a little bit more quiet than I would in the past. Not just to stay quiet to stay quiet, but stay quiet for the sake of the contention itself.

We're going to get to it a whole lot later in our 365-day journey, but Christ comes to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 11, and one of the counsel that he gives them in the very first time he meets them is that we should not have contention among us. So today, what can you do to lighten the contention in your life? What can you do to lessen the arguments around you?

Perhaps that might just be that you're not causing the arguments. Maybe you could just turn off listening to the arguments and give that a try for a second. Whatever it is, I hope that you take King Benjamin's counsel here to another level and simply beware lest there arise contentions in your life and you lean towards obeying the evil spirit.

I hope that's something that can be a little bit more savory in your life as you avoid contention and increase the amount of the Spirit in your life. 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.