2.145 As to the Wisdom of the World

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. How many of you have ever said something to the effect of, "Please nourish and strengthen us" inside of a prayer over the food?

You too? Just me? Don't worry, today is not a criticism if you have used that phrase.

Instead, it's a quick thought into the idea of nourishment. We are on the tail end of our reading this week with Doctrine and Covenants sections 49 and 50 as well as Mosiah chapters 21 through 25. And I left myself with several chapters to cover and only one spot left this week to consider.

And this one might come as a little bit of a curveball, but I've spent some time in it and I wanted to share it with you. So let's take a look at it. It comes inside of Mosiah chapter 24.

We have Limhi's story that we already talked about a little bit and then we also have Alma's story, and both of them are going to experience difficulties with the Lamanites. They're both going to have their challenges; they're both going to be delivered of the Lord in different ways, a little bit similar but different ways. But we get this interesting insight to the Lamanites that I think can teach us all a bit of an idea on nourishment.

Our verse is Mosiah 24, verse 7. It says this: "And thus the Lamanites began to increase in riches, and began to trade one with another, and wax great, and began to be a cunning and a wise people, as to the wisdom of the world. Yea, a very cunning people, delighting in all manner of wickedness and plunder, except it were among their own brethren." Now, this one's an interesting one because the front end of this verse sounds like there is some serious Lamanite success happening here.

Riches, trade, waxing great, cunning and wise people. These are intelligent, successful, wealthy situations here. I wanted to call their horses over.

They would have a bucket of grain and they would shake the bucket, and the horses knew that that was the time to come over to have some snacks, right? And they'd come over and be able to either, you know, tie up or get the horses ready to ride or whatever while the horses ate from the grain bucket. And sometimes when they were a little bit lazy, they didn't fill the bucket with grain; they filled it with dirt.

And it initially would bring over the horses, but many of the horses lost trust in that process and would no longer come even when the bucket was full of grain because they had been tricked with these buckets of dirt. Now, what does this mean with this, you know, successful "as to the wisdom of the world"? Where's the connection, Allen?

So let me try and connect this. Let me see if I can get this connected here. It says here inside of the talk, "Just as I learned as a young man that grain was more appealing to our horses than a dirt-filled bucket, I also learned that grain was more nourishing than hay, that hay was more nourishing than straw, and that it was possible to feed a horse without nourishing him." Now, isn't that an interesting perspective?

Grain was more nourishing than hay. Hay was more nourishing than straw, and obviously straw is far more nourishing than a bucket of dirt. And what this got me thinking about was these Lamanites have riches, trade, success, wisdom "As to the world," wise people, cunning people, waxing great.

How much of that was nourishment versus feeding? My friends, it led me down kind of a personal thought, so I'm going to share it with you. Here's my look in the mirror moment for you and for me.

What does it mean to be nourished versus fed? In what parts of our about? And we feeding on nothing that will provide nourishment for us?

This one was a great one for me to dive in personally. Great activity for you to look at different places in your lives when it comes to nourished by the good word of God. My friends, I know that as we spend time in the scriptures, I know that as we seek the words of living prophets, we can be nourished, not just fed, that we can go beyond the wisdom of the world and find the treasures of heaven.

I'm excited for what this can be as I look into my life and try to increase my grains and decrease my straw, my hay, and my buckets of dirt. I hope that one made sense. If not, go listen to the talk.

Maybe it'll make a little bit more sense for you. Either way, 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.