2.186 When Do You Light Things Up?

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. I've got kind of a weird question for you today, but what if feelings were visible? Let me explain what I have to say with that one and I hope today's a little bit of a light thought, kind of a fun thought as I've kind of reflected on it actually.

We've been reading this week Doctrine and Covenants sections 71 through 75 as well as Alma chapters We're going to finish up our Doctrine and Covenants reading today inside of Doctrine and Covenants section 75. And this is going to talk mainly to missionaries of the time and even have some mission calls at the end of the section here. But this verse inside of here, it got me thinking about a phrase I heard years and years ago with a mentor of mine.

Let's read the verse first and then let's kind of talk about it. Doctrine and Covenants 75:19: And in whatsoever house ye enter, and they receive you, leave your blessing upon that house. Now, perhaps you've heard the phrase, as I just mentioned here, I heard from a mentor of mine years and years ago: "Do you light up the room when you enter it, or do you light up the room when you leave it?" And as I thought about that, and I thought about this verse here, whatsoever house ye enter and they receive you, leave your blessing upon that house.

Now I know this is to missionaries and missionaries pray a lot, right? That's typically what we interpret in terms of leave your blessing upon that house is pray with them, leave a blessing of the Lord. And ministering brothers and sisters, or you know formerly known as home and visiting teachers, right?

But ministering brothers and sisters, they tend to pray as well. But what I got thinking about was how many different times are we visiting other people, places, homes, neighborhood parties, ward parties. I don't know, visiting just friends' houses that aren't in the ward, right?

Or visiting even across state lines, like we go down sometimes to visit our in-laws down in Arizona, right? Or those types of ideas. And this lens is kind of a fun one.

Whatsoever house ye enter, and they receive you, leave your blessing upon that house. This has got me thinking about what energy, what emotions I leave behind in the houses that I visit. Do I leave love and happiness and joy?

Do I leave a little bit of humor behind me maybe? Or do I leave grumpiness and frustration? Do I leave anger?

I certainly hope that all of those former ideas are not something common in my life, but I'm aware that, you know, those things happen. And so this verse was a fun one for me to kind of pause and think about all the different places that I go. And then I started wondering, well, what if I could see him?

If I could see him, how quickly would I change him? If I had left a little, you know, dark cloud of anger as I walked around the house, how quickly would I try to seek to change that little dark cloud of anger into some sort of little shiny light sunshine of joy, right? I mean, I don't know what emotions would look like visually, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

My friends, if we are amongst others that love us and we love them and we're sharing with each other the love of Jesus Christ, what an opportunity it is for each of us to leave our blessings upon the houses that we visit. And even better, what if those emotions were visible and we saw the happiness and the joy and the light of Jesus Christ everywhere in a trail behind us because we went with intention to share his love with others. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave into the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt. We'll see you next time.