Thankful for...
Good neighbors. M is in VA doing interviews and it has been snowing all day. My neighbor called to tell me her husband was out doing my drive and not to be startled if I heard him. How great are they? Love the people on this street!
Study time...
Mosiah 9:17 and 10:10 - I have this little quote book that gives a quote as well as guiding your reading for this 100 day challenge. The quote attached to this reading is interesting to me. It is by Elder Bednar. I went to look up the thought online and found more to it, which enlightened me a bit more.
“Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things” (Jacob 4:6-7).
Brothers and sisters, please pay particular attention to the word grace as it is used in the verse I just read. In the Bible Dictionary we learn that the word grace frequently is used in the scriptures to connote a strengthening or enabling power:
“The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ.
“… It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts” (p. 697).
Thus, the enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement helps us to see and to do and to become good in ways that we could never recognize or accomplish with our limited mortal capacity. I testify and witness that the enabling power of the Savior’s Atonement is real.
The Nephites, who were somewhat lost as far as 'spiritual blindness' goes, found strength in the Lord as they went to battle w/ the Lamanites. It says they remembered the deliverance of their fathers.
I asked myself why this quote was paired with this scripture.
They must have had some softening of heart right? Why would they cry to the Lord? As you recognize you need Him and He answers back, do you then feel obliged to repent? I don't imagine the Lord just handed them help. He has warned time and again He'd let the Lamanites destroy the Nephites if they were being unrighteous. That would suggest a genuine change of heart, some repentance, some usage of the atonement.
That is where this quote comes into play. As the Nephites turned to the atonement is it possible that they literally gained strength of the Lord? Physically? Does the atonement give us physical strength and power? It benefits us emotionally and spiritually, of course it benefits us physically! We have all sorts of 'limited mortal capacities'. We recognize that it transforms our lives 'to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means'. We change habits, seek for better, heal wounds, cleanse imperfections all through the atonement. Those can be very physical. Why wouldn't it also give us literal physical strength?
It wasn't by some magical power that the Nephites overcame, it was through the atonement.
Photo...
O came in, 'Mom E is sleeping and I covered him up.'
Awe I thought, 'Thanks O you are a good brother.'
I go in and literally...
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