2.321 They Did Not Realize that it was the Lord

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. A direct question to start the week: can you see the Lord in your life? Do you see miracles around you?

Our reading this week is an interesting one as we're reading Doctrine and Covenants Sections 133 and 134 as well as Mormon Chapters 3 through 6. The interesting component of that, that I'm going to, it won't necessarily be the theme for the entire week, but we do have several scriptures we're going to look at with this theme. Both of our readings this week entail an ending of sorts.

Doctrine and Covenants Section 133 was initially intended to be the appendix, the ending of the Book of Commandments. So if Doctrine and Covenants Section 1 was meant to be the prelude and the introduction to the Book of Commandments, well, Doctrine and Covenants Section 133 was meant to be its end, its appendix, its finishing. Then we have the Book of Mormon here—the small one, right?

We talked about that. Mormon Chapter Six, we come to the end of the Nephite civilization. So all things that the Book of Mormon has talked about with the Nephites and the Lamanites are really wrapping up in Mormon Chapter Six.

What does that mean for us? Well, as we take a look at this, the end of the story tends to change perspectives. And so this week, I hope in your readings that your perspective starts to change as you realize that what you're reading this week was kind of intended, at least in their initial form, to be the end, the wrap-up, the final verses, so to speak—the final message.

Kind of an interesting lens to hold. And so we'll sprinkle that in throughout our readings this week. Our verse for today, I'm actually going to start in the Book of Mormon here.

So we'll get to Doctrine and Covenants and we may be a little ping-pong-y this week as we have done in the past. But I wanted to start here picking up a little bit from where we wrapped up yesterday with Mormon Chapter 2 and the difficult times not robbing us of the peace that Jesus Christ can offer us, right? These were certainly difficult times as Mormon, I actually kind of got a little emotional here maybe because of what was happening in our own lives as well as trying to picture Mormon's experience as he witnessed the destruction of his own people.

He was told a couple of times by the Lord to repent and make it known that the Lord is begging them to repent. And our verse for today comes inside of his context a little bit there. Mormon 3:3, he says, "And behold, they did harden their hearts against the Lord their God." Now I know for sure, for me, I don't know about you, but there's absolutely been times in my life when I have not realized it was the Lord that was in my life and that had spared me.

That got me reflecting on trying to see miracles in my life and see blessings in my life. My daughter has been experiencing quite a challenge on her mission. I've not talked about it too much here, but she's been having a really hard time on the tail end of her mission.

And she shared with our family some thoughts that I didn't ask for her permission to share this, but I think she'll be all right if I just shared this little piece here. In the middle of her challenge, I won't go into the challenge piece. She just says this in her writing to us as a family.

She got to a point by the way, on her mission where she didn't know if she was going to come home or not. My friends, brothers and sisters, may each of us take time every day, every hour to see the Lord's hand in our lives. I promise you that if you will look for God's hand in your life, you will find it.

See the miracles, seek the miracles. I think for these messages to be on the tail end of Mormon and Section 133 being the tail end of the Book of Commandments, we absolutely have a lesson to learn there. For us today, to see the Lord's hand, look for God's hand in our lives, see it and experience it.

I love that one. 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.