18 January -- It Is the Lord!

So Thursday I practically phoned it in and with this devotion, I didn't even write. I honestly did not make he time. I initially wrote "have," but quickly scanned the day and know that I could have found a few minutes to write something. I just have so dang much I want to do!

I have been struggling with direction -- trying to figure out which of the many good ideas I have to work on first. Should I focus on school, should I focus on a couple of business ideas I have, should I focus more on my callings at church? But the sweet, dear sister I was with Thursday night made one statement that put it all into perspective for me. She said, "If you get your year's supply together, everything will open up for you." And it clicked ... I mean really just clicked right at that moment. What I really needed to be doing was listening to a prophet's voice.

There are so many good things to do, even good service to do, and we Mormon's get wrapped up in our service, don't we? But just as it's important to recognize our unworthy natures, it is important to recognize when we are becoming prideful servants. The concept of being unprofitable servants (Mosiah 2-5), occasionally leads to the odd behavior of what I call "martyr" service. "Oh, look at me, I'm the poor suffering soul that always attends all the events and works at everything and spends all my time toiling away for the benefit of the church. Look! Look at what I did now." Now, of course, no one really says that, but they do it. I think we just might all have felt it, too.

Yes, there are about the same 10 people that do everything, it seems. But just as service done simply because we "have to" doesn't lead to growth, service done to benefit ourselves leads quite literally to damnation. Knowing that damnation is the stopping of forward progress (think the little beavers building a dam), each time we serve "for ourselves" and not by God's direction, we place another limb or branch or pile of leaves on our stream of life. The stream slows to a trickle and eventually dries up down stream. Then we cannot understand why we are so lifeless and dry and confused and sad.

The challenge is to serve at the will of the Lord. We need to be fighting His battles, no our own. And that's where food storage comes in for me. The greatest service I could give the Lord is actually listening to and putting into action the direction of His servants on this earth. That's exactly what I'm going to do. We have enough extra money this month to get our 72 hour kits and at least 1 month supply of food today.

More later!