2.19 O Lord, Give Me the Strength

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 to the 19th day of the year.

Can you believe we're already that far into our year? It's the 19th day of season two. And inside of it, I hope that your New Year's resolutions, if you made them, or the goals or aspirations that you set for yourself are still going forward rather than have dropped off.

And if they've dropped off, do a little course correction, get back on the horse. You got this. You can do the things that you wanted to do 19 days ago.

Today we're going to continue our look in the Book of Mormon this week as your reading for the Book of Mormon has been 1 Nephi chapters 4–8. Yesterday we had a great conversation about remembering that the things inside the Book of Mormon are put there specifically of worth and value for us. Today we shift from Nephi talking to us to going back to telling his story.

And inside 1 Nephi chapter 7, by the way, side note, I hope you really enjoy 1 Nephi 8. That's Lehi's dream and there's some awesome stuff inside of there. We're not going to get to that in These are two of my favorite verses in terms of Nephi's story.

It's found in 1 Nephi chapter 7 verses 17–18. We're going to look at 17. You absolutely got to read 18 as part of this story here.

This is what it says. Verse 17: "But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord saying, O Lord, according to my faith" He fully expects the Lord to answer his prayers by giving him the strength to break the cords. Kind of this Herculean moment, right?

Now, the Lord does answer his prayer, but he does it, we won't read all of 18 because then we would be breaking the rules of Savory Salt, but we find out in verse 18 that the Lord answered his prayer by simply loosing the bands and they fell off his hands and feet. The Lord just made the bands looser. Now, what's the story here?

Well, Nephi was asking to be so strong that he could break the cords that bound him. And the Lord did answer his prayer, but he didn't make Nephi some sort of Hercules. He didn't give Nephi super strength.

He simply loosened the bands and made the bands fall off. And I love this part of the story because it reminds me that while I'm praying and asking Heavenly Father for a solution sometimes my solutions are mine and they are the things that I think should happen in my life. And yet if I pray to the Lord and ask him for a solution.

Maybe presenting a solution is one path as Nephi did here, but maybe another solution is simply allowing the Lord to know that you are willing to accept and answer whatever it is that he has in store for you. It's such a great reminder to me that the Lord answers our prayers and sometimes he answers those prayers in ways that we don't even recognize or we didn't even have in our own eyesight in the first place. I love that Nephi's prayer is answered here and I love that the Lord answered it differently than the way Nephi asked for it.

Such a great reminder for me and my prayers and what I ask the Lord to accomplish in my life. 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.