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October 20, 2003 --
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...Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these...But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
3 Nephi 13:28-29,33
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No matter how many times I talk about it, I have yet to learn my lesson: I take way too much on my own shoulders and don't rely nearly enough on the Lord. Life is far too stressful when you try to do every big thing on your own, and expect it to all get done yesterday. I don't know that I have any specific examples to give right now, but I still think that I'm on the right track with this thought.
"Take threfore no thought for the morrow," the Lord taught, "for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Now, in the King James English, thought means to worry. So the Lord's command is not to worry about tomorrow. Sure, we can plan for it, prepare for it -- but today is the day we are living in, and there is plenty to worry about right now.
While these have been the thoughts occurring to me the last couple of days, I'm not really sure what it all means yet. I know that when I step out of all the work and trouble and really look at myself, I feel far behind where I want to be right now. Maybe I expect too much of myself, or maybe I work too hard in the wrong directions. Maybe my will is not the Lord's will, and so I get unhappy because I don't see what I want, not realizing that it really isn't what I should want anyway.
It's all kind of confusing, I suppose, but I am again grateful to have this quarter off so I have some time to think about these things. My relationship with the Lord ought to be the priority in my life, so I'm trying to take advantage of this time to strengthen that relationship.
As for what I do each day, I try to take time to thoughtfully and prayerfully plan for each day; while I'll never get done as much as I would like to in a single day, at least I can feel that I've done what mattered most and that I did what the Lord wanted me too (I learned that from Elder Wirthlin's talk during General Conference).
Now, most other things in my life are progressing rather nicely. The artwork I need to do for that website I mentioned before is moving forward swiftly, thanks to several ideas that struck during the middle of sacrament meeting yesterday. Other projects are also moving forward thanks to similar inspiration. I'm still planning to attend Portland State University in the Winter, and I plan to start attending the Institute there as well. Hopefully, that will help my life progress in personal and social areas, but we'll see...:)
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