3.209 Shout of Joy

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 will serve.

I want to take you back to start this episode to around February or March of 2001. I'm just wrapping up my mission in Mongolia and I'm meeting with a former companion of mine. We had both been very young when we served together and we served in a place I affectionately call the Farthorne.

This is the first time we've talked about this place on earth in Hovd, Mongolia. We had been very young, both of us just learning the language. We were the first elders to go through that area in the wintertime.

I've talked about a little bit of my stories with Elder Swanson here on Savory Salt. And yet at this event, we sat having lunch together, pretty quiet actually, as we kind of just reflected on our time together. We were both now at a stage in our mission where we spoke the language fluently; we were confident in our abilities to share the gospel and all that we were doing as missionaries.

And a question just kind of lingered between us. That question was, what if we could go back now with all that we know, how would we serve differently in our little town of Hovd? We obviously didn't have an answer, nor did we have an opportunity to go back with our language better and with our ability.

Now let's take a look at the opportunity that they took to go back and perhaps come back to the back end of my story that I started off with here. Our verse for today is in Ezra chapter 3 verse 11. Cyrus has given anyone that wanted an opportunity to go back to Jerusalem and to begin working on the foundations of this destroyed temple.

They hauled in all of the precious metals and things that were taken by Nebuchadnezzar. And here we have verse 11 in chapter 3: 'And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good for his mercy endureth forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.' Now this is an uplifting verse here.

I love this verse. There's praising and giving thanks and shouting and singing, and there's joy. And that joy is because they've been able to lay the foundation of the house of the Lord again.

My friends, how many different places in your life have you laid the foundation of the Lord in your own life? And what joy does that bring? This story is such a beautiful story as the return because if you keep reading in Ezra chapter 3, you see that even people that were older that could remember the destruction were crying because they were seeing the temple being rebuilt here.

I look forward to the day when I go to Mongolia again. I do plan to do so because now a temple's been announced to be built in Mongolia. And that brings tears of joy to my eyes.

I remember it being announced by the Prophet over General Conference, and me and all my mission buddies and friends were texting each other and were crying, and just the Spirit was overwhelming because we were going to see the foundation of the house of the Lord built there and laid for the people of Mongolia. My friends, I think there's something amazing here and an opportunity for us to perhaps go back, not necessarily go back to our same situations, relive them and try to do them all over again, but a chance to go back to the Lord every day, every hour, a chance to turn to Him and relay the foundations of His house in our own lives and in our own hearts. I'm so grateful that God truly is good.

His mercy truly does endure forever toward Israel. You and I are part of that. We're in the house of Israel, and the Lord will continue to turn to us every time we turn to Him.

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.