3.021 Will Work for Bread

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you'll serve.

What is it about work that we just have to do it? We're reading this week Genesis chapters 3 and 4 and Moses chapters 4 and 5, which are basically the same chapters as Genesis 3 and 4. And inside of it we're going to get the fall of Adam and Eve.

And we're going to learn some essential lessons, as we already have started, as we've been doing this week. So let's get started. We've gone through this week.

One of the core ones I want to continue to focus on is the positive nature of the fall of Adam and Eve. What do we learn from them, and how can we best prepare ourselves to learn all there is from their fall so that we don't perhaps repeat it ourselves? Today we are going to take a look inside of Genesis 3, verse 19.

It is in this moment that we are hearing as the Lord is kind of presenting the consequences of their actions to Adam and Eve. And He is going to explain to Adam that he's got some work to do because of his choices. And verse 19 says this: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.

For out of it wast thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Now we typically hear this and think that work is a challenging consequence, work is a negative consequence of the choice of Adam and Eve. But I think we can see something inside of here that may spin this a little bit different direction.

I want to reference as we do a talk from President Uchtdorf from 2009. I'll make sure that it's linked inside the podcast episode here. It's from the talk called "Two Principles for Any Economy." Well worth our time and study, especially this week as we're looking at this concept of working in order to have our bread.

He says this in the talk: "The Lord is worthy of His hire. He also gave a promise: 'Thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you.' Those who are unafraid to roll up their sleeves and lose themselves in the pursuit of worthwhile goals are a blessing to their families, communities, nations, and to the Church." The Lord doesn't expect us to work harder than we are able. He doesn't, nor should we, compare our efforts to those of others.

Our Heavenly Father asks only that we do the best we can, that we work according to our full capacity, however great or small that may be. Now I love this section because one, it reminds us of all the different ways that the Lord sees and likes and loves those who are willing to do the work. I love the lesson that we get here for Adam specifically.

He's going to get his bread, right? He's going to eat his bread from the sweat of his face, from the work that he does. I think sometimes I look back at times in my life in places where I wasn't willing to do the work.

And I see the consequences of those. One of them maybe being a little bit inconsequential for most people, but for me, it's one of my great, I don't know. And that's a lesson for each one of us to remember.

With the fall of Adam and Eve comes the need for us to do the work in order to get the bread. And so as we go forward, I hope that you and I can both remember and have the willingness to say, "Hey, I'm going to raise my hand and say, 'I will work for bread.'" I'm willing to. I want to get those blessings and benefits from our Heavenly Father.

I hope you're willing to work for bread as well. That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.