Day 247 Different Ways the Lord Can Help

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. I know that I'm cheering for your every success.

Quick question for you: How many different ways could the Lord help you out? That's what I want to look into today. Welcome to day 247.

On our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together, today we're going to be reading Alma chapter 58, verses 13-14. Chapter 18. And here you kind of get a wrap of the situation with Helaman as they have captured more cities by more different strategies.

We have kind of a fun, kind of faint strategy that happens with this one as he recounts this story. And then we get to the verse for today where we kind of have Helaman summing up the situation and telling Captain Moroni where he at. And that in Alma chapter 58, verse 31.

And this is what it says: "Those cities which had been taken by the Lamanites, all of them are at this period of time in our possession. And our fathers and our women and our children are returning to their homes, all save it be those who have been taken prisoners and carried off by the Lamanites." Now this one's kind of an interesting one to choose today, but basically Helaman's saying, hey, through all of the different things that we've done, we've got back everything. The fun thing that I wanted to look at today, and the fun idea that kind of came to mind, was how many different ways each of these cities were taken.

Helaman tells stories about drawing Lamanites out over here, and he tells stories about hiding in the bushes over there, and sneaking into this city over here, and capturing the guards that are at this one over here. There are so many different ways, and I think it's interesting because all of this time they were doing it by seeking counsel from the Lord. I think for us, we can regularly ask a couple of questions that may help the Lord when it comes to personal revelation and inspiration as we seek answers.

One of them that comes to mind is, "How else could we do this?" At any given time, I think, as I'm imagining, you know, Helaman and these four generals gathering together, and I see one of them, you know, asking the others, "How else could we do this? How else could we take this city back? How else could we draw the Lamanites out?

How else could we even fight against a force that's so much larger than us?" And that, I think, is something that we can take in our own lives as we seek for inspiration from the Lord. Keep in mind the question: "How else could we do this?" If this path that I'm currently facing is not a plausible path, how else could I do that? I think that's a great question.

The second one that comes to mind is very similar and yet has a little bit of a different take to it. The second question that came to mind for me was, "What else can we do more?" So, "how else could we do this?" and "what else can we do more?" I think those two questions, in fact, as I was kind of testing this idea before I recorded this episode, I got thinking (perhaps again because of the context of my daughter serving her mission right now), but I got thinking of all the different times on my mission where we had situations, and we didn't know what to do, and those questions came to mind for me. And look, there's times on your mission, depending on where you serve, where you've got to get kind of creative.

My daughter was just telling us some stories about how she has to deal with cleaning her clothes. I think that open creativity and asking for the Lord's help is what opens the door to inspiration and revelation. Now, is it a small thing to think about different ways to shower versus a large thing like different cities and how you can go to war with Lamanites?

Yeah, but I think the Lord, if it's important to us, will also be important to Him as well. And so I love this idea: "How else could we do this?" and "What else could we do more?" when it comes to seeking for inspiration and revelation from the Lord? 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, and I hope you are too.