2.15 Hmm...Remain in Darkness or Ask of God?

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends.

Great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Welcome back as we continue to dive into Joseph Smith—History chapter one.

We're going to be looking this week through verses 1 through 26. And as is our third day here through this week, we're going to be looking at verses 11 through 15. Verses 11–15 have some of the most commonly used and most powerful verses that missionaries use when teaching about Joseph Smith.

This isn't the First Vision verses that we're used to, but these are the verses, especially 11 and 12, where we find out that Joseph turned to the Bible for an answer and while reading through the Bible came across James. And then we find out that that scripture hit him deeper than any other scripture to hit any other man really, as the way he describes it. It was a very powerful moment for him.

And while I wanted to use those verses, I actually settled on verse 13 as our verse for today. And I want to explain why. But first, let's look at Joseph Smith—History chapter one, verse 13.

He read in the Bible that anyone that is lacking wisdom can ask God directly. He realizes that he's not the only one who is lacking wisdom. He's trying to find information, so he may as well try that out.

But then he kind of wrestles with whether he's going to do that or not. And we get verse 13 here. It says, At length, I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God.

I at length came to the determination to ask of God, concluding that if He gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom and would give liberally and not upbraid, I might venture. Now, I love inside of this two times, "at length." Joseph is not just reading this, and he instantly goes, "Oh, I should ask God!" And then three minutes later he tramps off into the woods to kneel down and pray. At length, he continues this reflective process.

He thinks into the scripture what it means for his life. And then I love the conclusion he comes to, because he has a choice here: He can remain in darkness and confusion or follow the directions that James gives and ask of God. My friends, I think sometimes in our lives, we choose to remain in darkness and confusion.

As weird as that sounds. And look, there's been times in my life where I've wrestled with a decision and I'm like, oh, I can figure this out. Allen's got this figured out.

And I'm trusting entirely on me and my decision-making skills. And I forget the times in my life where I have asked God directly and prayed regularly. And we prayed and we knew that we were supposed to move to Houston, Texas.

Now we ended up living there for six years before we moved back to Utah. And ultimately, you know, you can say, well, why were you there for six years? I don't know that there was a specific reason, but what I do know is that the Lord directed us and he also directed us when we moved to Utah.

My friends, you can choose to remain in darkness and confusion, or you can choose to follow James's direction and ask of God. I promise you, you seek from Heavenly Father. Remember two days ago, we talked about going to the source.

The source is Heavenly Father. Seek His direction and counsel, and He will provide the information and the way that you're looking to find in your life. I promise you that.

That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt.