2.338 And I Saw...

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. If I could look you in the eyes right now, I would ask this question. Did you take an opportunity to listen to the music yesterday and to just allow yourself to ponder?

If you can't take just two minutes in the day to seek pondering and meditation, when will you allow the Lord to come? The power of the scriptures, as we see President Smith do, which opens the door to this vision. We're going to see it at another level as we take a look at our verse for today: Doctrine and Covenants Section 138, verse 11.

And it says this: "As I pondered over these things which are written, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great." Now, did you catch the dominoes inside that verse? "As I pondered over these things which are written." So he's taking the time to ponder specific verses of scripture. Then what happens as he's pondering and meditating over those scriptures? "The eyes of my understanding were opened." I love that phrase. That phrase has nothing to do with eyesight.

If you look into that, "the eyes of my understanding were opened." You ever get that light bulb moment where you just understood something differently than you did before? That's what's happening here. Literally, in a sense, the veil is being lifted from President Smith's eyes, so to speak, or eyes of understanding. "The Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw..." Now there are times and places I can think of in my life where these kind of dominoes have happened, and one of the ones that comes to mind specifically is the opportunity to sit in the celestial room in a temple and to ponder and meditate, to think about perhaps things that I've just done in terms of the ordinance work that I've done for others, but also things.

I love picking up a book of scripture while I'm in the temple, reading through. In fact, many of these podcast episodes have been pondered about and meditated upon while I'm in the temple as I read through the assignments here. My friends, I think as we're seeing here, there's more for us to understand about the gospel.

The Lord only restricts us, or maybe I should flip it around and say we are only restricted because we don't do the things required to receive the testimonies. So yesterday, whether you took an opportunity to ponder, I hope if you did, that it just gave you a piece of quiet, is all. I hope it gave you a chance to just have a little peace, quiet, a little reflection in your day.

Thank you for watching. I like that song. It's not a specific song by any means.

It's just a song that invites kind of a quiet reflection. But I hope that you have an opportunity, if you haven't experienced that, you will take the opportunity to ponder, to seek for your eyes of understanding to be opened, to allow the Spirit of the Lord to rest upon you and then allow yourself to see. I know that the temple and other places are absolutely places where we can have these spiritual experiences for ourselves.

Maybe you don't need to see it in the way that Nephi saw it. Maybe you don't need to see it in the way that Joseph Smith saw it. Maybe you can see it in the way that President Smith seems to say here with the eyes of his understanding being opened.

I love that phrase. 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.