2.155 Anxiously Engaged

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.

It's great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. And oh, are we going to sound a little redundant today as we come to the verse that our theme for this season has been drawn from.

This week, we're reading Doctrine and Covenants, sections 58 and 59, as well as Alma chapters two through five. And I got to tell you, in Doctrine and Covenants 58 and 59, there are a lot of like micro power verses in here. So we're not going to get to all of them.

And it's sad, but I hope you find them. I hope you take the time to go through them and find the ones that are strong for you and that mean something to you. There are several in here that could be standalone, you know, poster-type power motivational verses.

And I hope that they stick out to you in whatever way and speak to you in a way that the Savior can say, "Hey, here's one for you, right?" What we're going to look at today is Doctrine and Covenants section 58, verse 27. And it's going to sound awfully familiar for those of you that don't skip the intro of the podcast every time you listen to it. I know sometimes I do.

But let's read verse 27 and then see if we can put a little bit of an activity here with it. Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness. Now you'll notice here that that's not actually a complete sentence.

It keeps going. In fact, if you want to put 26, 27, 28, 29 together, those would be a great power combo there. But looking specifically at 27 there, I want you to do an activity if you choose to take the time to do so, because you're going to use your own free will here.

First, I want you to just create a list, just brainstorm all of the things in your day-to-day life where you are anxiously engaged and include all of them. And by anxiously engaged, what are the things that you are spending your time doing all day, every day? And I think at least for the time of this recording, as we get into the summer hours, for those of you that are teens and whatnot, you may be finding that your anxious engagement is going to open up tremendously in terms of the amount of time that you have in the day.

But just take an opportunity, just make that list. So, all the ways that you're anxiously engaged. And what we're going to do is we're going to put two lenses on top of that list.

So once you've made that list, the next list over, now what I want you to do is carry over any of those ways that you're anxiously engaged in a good cause. So the second list is going to be any of the ones from the first list that you would consider a good cause, right? So, some of those maybe get carried over.

Honestly, some of them you might, you know, you might have some moments where you're like, I really want to say that my social media consumption or my, you know, Instagram or whatever, right? That consumption is anxiously engaged in a good cause. But you're going to have to choose that lens, the good cause lens.

Now, when you get done with that, the third one, we're going to actually add a third filter here because I think there is a third filter in this verse. Bringing to pass much righteousness. I think there's a difference in good causes and much righteousness.

Or at least as I read it, I see that there's like another standard there. It seems to be like a higher-level standard. So for your third list, now I want you to go through your good cause list and see which one of those gets into the ranking of much righteousness.

Now, if your anxiously engaged list was really big and then your next list was a little bit smaller and then your final list was super tiny, here's an opportunity for you and I to consider what needs to be added to your list to maybe get a few more on the much righteousness side of things and what needs to be subtracted or deleted from your anxiously engaged list. Now, maybe some of those need to be deleted entirely or maybe they just need to be turned down in the amount of time that you're consuming them. My friends, an activity like this is a chance for us to apply the scriptures in our lives, to liken them as Nephi would say, so that we have an opportunity to filter through the lens the Lord would have us filter our good causes and our opportunities to bring to pass much righteousness.

We have so much opportunity to not just do good, but to do righteous inside of our own lives. And I hope that you and I take that opportunity and crank up that filter so that we together can bring to pass much righteousness. 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. For more information, visit us at www.fema.org.