Scriptures, Plain and Simple

I have been thinking a lot about spirituality in the past week, this may start out a little disjointed, but there will be cohesion by the end. Bear with me, here we go!

In Doctrine and Covenants 29:34-35 God states, "Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created. Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual.”

Everything we do has an impact on our ability to feel the Spirit. I believe this from head to foot.

I have witnessed recently an ever growing number of people I know fall away from their belief in God, our Savior, and the gospel as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I can’t help but stop and wonder if that could ever happen to me, my husband, or my child (someday children). The answer is, of course it could happen. What am I doing to make sure it doesn’t happen?

I learned long ago, (well, it seems long ago to me…), that the real key to spiritual power in my life is reading the scriptures daily, and praying. I’m sure, reading that scripture above, you may be thinking, “Scripture study? Of course that is a spiritual principle!” Sometimes those are the ones in my life that fall by the wayside the most. And as a wise friend recently said to me, it is sometimes hard to do the things you know you should when you haven't connected with God regularly. It is possible to just skim when reading the scriptures. Or to read something just to get that part of the day out of the way. I’ve found myself doing both of these.

There are so many ways in which we are spiritually undermined from day to day, and our personal spirituality has an impact on every other aspect of our lives. Our children, siblings, neighbors, parents, and on and on, see this reflected in who we are. I suppose that last sentence may sound a little scary, it is not meant to be that way at all. It is a lovely and revitalizing truth that we are the makers of our lives. We choose which way we will turn, to or from the Lord. It is a daily decision.

I heard a woman speak one time about how she knew that if she woke up a little early she knew she would be able to have a very spiritual scripture study, but as things were she preferred to read during the day so that her children could see her do it. I feel so strongly that this is a correct principle. Our families need to know how we feel about the scriptures. This starts with me keeping the proper mental attitude towards reading them, though. There are days that I push my reading to a back burner in favor of doing something else. Sometimes it is even necessary. But I have found that somewhere in the day there will be a moment when the Spirit whispers to me that I could read something then, even something short, and be spiritually strengthened for that day. I hope I will remember to take advantage of those moments, remembering it is not just for me, but for my family’s sake as well.