2.254 At Variance One With Another

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. What happens when we're at variance with each other? We've been reading this week Doctrine and Covenants Sections 98 through 101 as well as Helaman Chapters 3 through 7.

And Doctrine and Covenants 101 is very, very large. It covers some great moments and thoughts inside of here, but I didn't want to spend too much time on it, because last week we kind of got shorted on the Book of Mormon and this week I wanted to make sure to give us a few days. So we're going to just do one thought inside of Doctrine and Covenants Section 101 with the understanding that there's some great verses in there.

I hope you take the time to dive in personally to the gems that are inside of them. I wanted to do a verse that came actually, I've got it marked here from a ward conference from 2016. So that's been a while.

It was a parable that our bishop shared back then that I have a note of here. And I thought, you know, it's been almost 10 years since that counsel was given. Where am I in terms of the counsel?

And that is what led to my thoughts inside of our verse for today. We're going to read Doctrine and Covenants Section 101, Verse 50. Now this is the middle of a parable that's happening here.

So just to give you a little bit of context, there is a nobleman, a landowner here, that has a piece of land, and he puts his workers to work to kind of build some bushes around the land, plant some trees, and then to build a watchtower. And in the verses preceding verse 50, these workers of the nobleman are questioning the motives of the nobleman and they're wondering why they need to build a watchtower. There seems to be no danger to the fields.

There seems to be no issue. And then we settle in here in the middle of their conversation on verse 50. So there's, you'll be able to read these verses.

This parable starts just as a reference. 43 is where it starts, so it's kind of going for a few verses. But in verse 50 it says this: and while they were at variance one with another, they became very slothful, and they hearkened not unto the commandments of their Lord. Now this is the final verse about them kind of just delaying their building of the watchtower.

They think that the nobleman is kind of wasting his money. Now that got me thinking, and the note that I had here from 2016 was counsel from our bishop at the time that challenged us in our own lives to say, hey, how much time are you spending debating about the counsel you're receiving, whether it's from your bishopric, your stake presidency, whether it's from the prophet himself through General Conference talks, or how much time do you spend debating or how much time do you spend at variance with the counsel you're receiving versus the obedience to the word of the Lord? And that's really got me thinking because this variance, it's not just the variance that stuck out to me.

It was that while they're sitting there debating these things, they became very slothful. And so this delayed obedience kind of led to them not just, you know, losing the land, obviously, and the hedges and everything, but it also just led to them stopping their own obedience. They hearkened not unto the commandments of the Lord.

That's an interesting idea for me to kind of wrestle with. I think about areas where I'm trying to follow the words of our living prophet. His call recently to be peacemakers.

His call, I'm seeing it in scripture. I'm seeing it through his messages as he, as of this recording, turns 101. As he's 101 years old and sharing with the world the wisdom and the knowledge that he's seen over this hundred years.

My friends, I think there are some times for us to, you know, there's certainly a thing called blind obedience where we just obey because we're brainwashed to obey. But I think there's also times where debating whether the counsel we're receiving is of value to us can absolutely turn to our detriment. So whether it's come from stake leadership, whether it's come from ward leadership, whether it comes from our living prophet and apostles, whether it comes from counsel from the scriptures themselves, perhaps it's worth us hearing the word of the Lord and seeing how quickly we can apply and seek to be obedient to that counsel in our own lives.

And then watch what the Lord can do to bless us afterwards. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to repent of the times that I'm slothful and repent of the times that I'm at variance with others in my opinions. I'm grateful that I have a chance to try again and to listen and obey to the words the Lord has given us through his servants.

I think you and I will be better for it as we do so. 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.