New Year Resolutions: What's your BAE?

 Go not after other gods to serve them, 

and to worship them, 

and provoke me not to anger 

with the works of your hands" 

(Jeremiah 25:4-7)

Do these pictures look familiar? 

In almost any public place these days, you see people looking at their phones...

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 Out with friends?

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 Out with family?

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 Or even at home?

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The New Testament records that when the apostles asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was He said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." We can also get a clue to the most important commandment by what God chose to list as the FIRST of the Ten Commandments. It is a timeless guideline about our proper relationship to God. "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me."  

"Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; 
and if his god doesn’t also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, 
that man is laboring in idolatry."
-Spencer W. Kimball

Technology is AMAZING! A gift in our lives... or a curse depending on how we use it... or allow it to "use" us. According to Pres. Kimball's quote above, are we "laboring in idolatry" by "worshipping" our devices during our idle time? A study by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers found the average cell phone user actually checks their phone up to 150 times per day. In their annual Internet Trends report carried out in May 2017, the researchers narrowed the results down. It found that people check their phones, on average, 23 times a day for messaging, 22 times for voice calls and 18 times to get the time. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2449632

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An electronic device can open a window on the world. We can find invitations for good and for evil, or simply an invitation for comparison -  creating a sense of dissatisfaction with our life and a longing for the life people post about? 
Without electricity, a cell phone or iPad is just a piece of lifeless plastic that "waxes old" and become obsolete soon. Just like the idols of the Old Testament, they cannot hear or see and have no power. 





How do we do that? 
How do we keep ourselves from provoking God to anger 
and SHOW our love for God with our actions, not just words? 

There is a currently popular term 
"BAE"
 It means Before Anyone Else

For me, it means a commitment to read my scriptures BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE on my phone when I check it in the morning. It means to constantly redirect my thoughts to Jesus Christ and express gratitude for His gift of the Atonement and repentance. It means reminding myself to put my phone down when I'm with people, to look at them and enjoy the precious time we have together. It's a difficult balancing act for me when I'm with my grandchildren because I also want to take pictures to record the time to enjoy later when I'm not with them. The New Year seems like a good time to recommit to reconnect as often as possible with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE....

"For where your treasure is... 
there shall your heart be also."
Luke 12:34 and Matthew 6:21

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Click here to listen to "Strangely Dim" by Francesca Battistelli

I don't know why

I got a front row seat

To the longest wait

And I just can't see

Past the things I pray

Today

But when I fix my eyes 

on all that You are

Then every doubt I feel 

Deep in my heart

Grows strangely dim

...

I don't know, I don't know

What tomorrow may hold

But I know, but I know

That You're holding it all....

Addictions are Easy

Drifting from God is easy but growing spiritually is hard and takes work, lots of it….

I've been looking for a picture that would illustrate this truth for a long time. Last Sunday, our excellent teacher, Mike Hoer brought these two plants to class. He explained that the kale was planted months ago and pretty faithfully cared for. However, the 6 ft tall weed appeared suddenly in the middle of his flowerbed last week, growing unnoticed until it had towered over everything else! Thankfully, he consented to let me use this example for this post. How clearly this visual shows that the weeds in our lives require almost NO attention to grow and flourish but the good and healthy plants take constant care to even stay alive. 

My husband and I have observed and discussed many times how everything that brings you closer to God takes CONSISTENT daily effort. You have to CHOOSE to pray, read your scriptures, obey the commandments and serve others. You have to deliberately PRESS FORWARD and make a decision that you are going to do these things every day! If you do you will feel the peace and grounding effects of those decisions BUT none of those things are addictive, whereas illicit drugs, pornography and alcohol will become insurmountable distractions if you allow your physical body to become addicted to any of those things.  I use the word "allow" because we have free agency to CHOOSE how we treat our body and ANYTHING that takes our attention away from an eternal perspective can be addicting. 

The world is full of distractions! We can choose from any number of temptations continually before our eyes... from social media and secular philosophy to fashion and food! Satan can win our souls SO easily if we don't keep trying. I once heard someone say that we are all only three weeks from church inactivity. Elder Kevin S. Hamilton spoke of this happening to his father in October 2013 Conference:

               On a beautiful spring day, after returning home from Sunday morning worship services and having a midday family meal together, his mother turned to his father and asked simply, “Well, dear, do you think we should go to sacrament meeting this afternoon, or should we take the family for a ride in the country?”
              The idea that there was an option to sacrament meeting had never occurred to my father, but he and his three teenage siblings all sat up and paid careful attention. That Sunday afternoon ride in the country was probably an enjoyable family activity, but that small decision became the start of a new direction which ultimately led his family away from the Church with its safety, security, and blessings and onto a different path.

In the scriptural story "Lehi's Dream of the Tree of Life" found in the Book of Mormon 1 Nephi 8 Lehi sees numberless concourses of people PRESSING FORWARD ... Some holding to the rod leading to the tree of life where they can enjoy the precious fruit   OR   some  "feeling their way" to the spacious building to join those prideful, mocking throngs. 

Powerful quote from Susanna Wesley to her son, John Wesley (the founder of Methodism):
“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind; that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.”

I hope I can hold to the rod and PRESS FORWARD to the Tree of Life without becoming distracted. I hope I can demonstrate by my choices to worship the Lord of Heaven and Earth in all His matchless wonder, in continual praise and gratitude for His many, many blessings to us! We don't have to be moving forward at lightning speed… Sometimes I feel that simply facing forward is enough. Just don't let go and turn around once you've known the joy of tasting the precious fruit of the gospel. AMEN.

                                                 Click here to read "Continually Holding Fast"