today, in relief society (the womens class), our lesson was on a talk given by dieter f. uchtdorf, the second counselor in the general presidency of the LDS church. he is an awesome man with a wonderful gift for speaking in very plain and simple ways that are fun! to read the whole article, go here.
the article is titled "your potential, your privilege" and in it he basically poses the questions to all members of the church "are you living up to your potential or are you living below your privilege that is your right as a child of God?" he then offers solutions to help us live up to our potential in order to experience our privilege. although i could write pages on my thoughts and feelings of the entire article, i have decided to just focus on his first point- "read the owner's manual".
what is the owner manual he is talking about? the scriptures of course! and modern day revelation. are we really reading the words of prophets past and present to learn and absorb their words and messages or are we just going through the motion? or are we reading at all? are we praying to understand how to apply these messages into our own lives so that we can live more worthily of the privileges?
these questions are what i must ask myself. matt and i have been really good for a long time now at reading the book of mormon together every night. even when we are apart we call each other before we go to bed and read together. so that's great, we are doing family scripture reading. i chose the word reading, not studying, for a reason. we are doing what we've been asked, we are reading daily, but we are not living up the potential of the activity and studying it out, discussing it, and getting deep into it. we are not trying to find real life applications to help us live better and easier lives, which understanding and applying the scriptures offers us. we are not experiencing all the privileges that the book of mormon has to offer us! so there is something i need to work on, with my family.
now what am i personally doing as far as reading the owners manual is concerned- practically nothing. i occasionally read an article out of the ensign or new era and when i was teaching sunday school, i did prepare my lessons, but other than that, i am not even going through the motions. now that i am a stay at home mom, there is no excuse! i am going to have time in my day to read, i have a newborn. he sleeps- a lot. and i am going to have time to study, and delve into the topics of the gospel that i want and/or need to know more about. i will have time to find ways to apply the things i learn and to live better and understand more fully what it is that the Lord wants and expects of me.
so that's my challenge to myself- to begin a serious study. i know what i believe but i want to know more. i want to know more for myself, so that i can be a better latter-day saint, missionary, wife, mother, daughter, friend, sister, and person. and there is only one way to accomplish that- read the owners manual.
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