Helaman 12:7
It is true that all the creations of God obey Him, except His children. We are quick to do evil and slow to do good. It is easier to watch TV than it is to exercise. It is the river of the opposition of life where all things flow like gravity down to that which is death; to be at rest; having no more life and no more forces to act upon it. As mortals, it must be our “conscious and continual effort to fight against it.” (CS Lewis- The inner ring) We must chose to act on our agency, to decide be an entity that lives to act upon things, and not be a thing acted upon. We must be determined to apply the principle of work: to fight against the downward current and swim upstream. Sometime we must decide to deliberately go against the grain if the grain is going the wrong way. We have to be willing to stand alone and choose the right, even if we are the only ones doing it and we have to stand alone. When, for example, was the last time you were driving down the freeway going with the flow of traffic? How fast were you going? I find that traffic usually flows 5-10 miles above the speed limit. Is that a big deal? Maybe not, maybe it is. I am personally at a place on the path right now that I have to learn to “be quick to observe” and quick to obey. I am asking a lot of the Lord to bless me in the goals and vision I am seeking to attain. I have to be sure that I am strictly obedient, or else I have not ‘done all that I can do’. Did not Joseph Smith, the mortal who ‘has done more for mankind than any other man, save it be Jesus Christ’; did he not say that we must obey the law of the land? I have decided to obey this speed limit, even if I am the only one doing it. Others my see me as a ‘old fuddy-duddy’ and the traffic may swirl around me, but I know I am choosing the right and doing all that I can do to be obedient. Then when I get on my knees at night, or when I reach a critical juncture and need a miracle, I expect the Lord will hear my cry and grant my petition: because I have done all that I can do to be obedient. Now do I do this all the time every time, no. It is something I am conscious of and something I work to be aware of and careful to be obedient.
You would think that a person in this place trying to be ‘strictly obedient’ wouldn’t have other problems like an anger addiction, right? We all have to have areas we struggle it. It is part of the mortal experience. We are all subject to the flesh and therefore temptation. We all must strive to overcome the flesh and the world. We all must lay down our own will if we are to have a fullness of joy by seeking the Father’s will. This is Christ’s victory, and he says, “Come, follow me.” His victory will be our victory too if we trust in Him more than the arm of the flesh.
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