Day 254 Humility Pauses the Pride Cycle

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.

How do we break the pride cycle when it seems so infinitely repetitive inside the Book of Mormon? Welcome to day 254 on our 365 day journey through the Book of Mormon together. Today we're going to be reading Alma chapter 62 verses 43 to 52 and Alma chapter 63 verses 1 through 10.

We are one day away from wrapping up the Book of Alma, the monster that is inside the Book of Mormon. So much information. And we're going to see the beginning of what is commonly known as the pride cycle in the Book of Mormon.

It's going to start duplicating all over again here. But we actually get a pause, and I thought, "Wow, this is worth capturing," because there is, even if it's for a small moment, a pause in the pride cycle. And that comes in our reading today, Alma chapter 62, verse 49.

But I do want to note that really 48, 49, 50, 51 would be worth your time and attention today inside the reading. Alma 62:49 says this: "But notwithstanding their riches, or their strength, or their prosperity, they were not lifted up in the pride of their eyes. Neither were they slow to remember the Lord their God, but they did humble themselves exceedingly before Him." This one is so interesting because we see inside of here that yes, they were rich, they were strong, they were prosperous, but then we get this pause in the pride cycle.

And the pause comes because they were not slow to remember the Lord their God. They did humble themselves exceedingly before Him. And we get a continuous list here of 50 and 51 inside those verses.

My friends, it gave me pause to try and think about this for just a second. One of the aspects of the pride cycle is the abundance that comes from the blessings of the Lord. And in many cases that abundance comes in secular terms.

We get financially abundant, we get secure, we get things in our lives, and then those things take our focus away from the Lord. And it helped me remember a time, I remember a mentor that just says, "Look, money is nothing more than a magnifier." Money simply magnifies who you are inside. And I think it's one of the only billionaires I've ever met face to face in my life.

But I ended up at a billionaire's mansion one night with a friend of mine. And we had the opportunity to walk through his house and take a tour of his house. This man had come across billions of dollars as he had created an oil company that was a very successful oil company.

And we were just the two of us. So I was in my phone three times a day and I wrote down three things that he gave as advice. And one of them seems to feed into this type of idea.

One of his pieces of advice that he gave was: "It doesn't cost a thing to be kind." And that was so interesting because I saw this man who was used to sleeping in the cab of his own diesel truck. He was a trucker by trade. He was used to sleeping in his own cab and here he was inside this mansion and he had all this stuff.

He even talked to us about how sometimes he just slept on the floor rather than the bed because it was more like the cab of his truck. But one of his three lessons he told us when it comes to all of the money and everything else is: "It doesn't cost a thing to be kind." I saw that inside of this. I saw this amplification of kindness.

He had invited us into his house for the night. There was probably 30 or 40 of us that were inside of his mansion. And yet here he was offering with the kindness of his heart, the night for us to spend and to get to know him and to ask him any questions we wanted.

My friends, money seems to be a great magnifier and we can do great things with the abundance and the riches and the prosperity through the power the Lord gives us. And if we use that to continue to grow the gospel of Jesus Christ, that abundance can stay strong and we too can break the pride cycle so that we don't go into the paths of forgetting the Lord and bringing upon ourselves destruction. Hold to the abundance in your life and remember the Lord.

Remember and humble yourself before Him. Always be grateful for the blessings that come in your life through keeping the commandments. 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.