Here I will be sharing this journey of becoming strong in all areas of life. Become strong with me by coming along on the voyage - decide to put on thy strength, learn from others and share your own insights in the comments.
Just like we make gains in strength and endurance through progressive overload when training our bodies, our spiritual growth also depends on progressively learning to rely on the Lord more and more in overcoming trials. We all have our share of these in life as opportunities to progress.
"My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom." (D&C 136:31.)
Today while listening to scriptures this remark in the title stood out for me. It was part of the consensus reply given by the Nephites and people of Zarahemla following King Benjamin's remarks. I think it shows a great strength of faith above and beyond simply a willingness to follow, or loss of desire for sin, but a trust that the Lord can work through them. I will be working to build my trust that the Lord can work through me.
Last night I had a back yard fire with my girls. I was thinking about some parallels with the analogy of the spirt being like a fire burning. It seemed fitting as I've been using small changes for myself to bring about change and overcome inertia to really get restarted that to start the fire required small kindling gradually stepping up until a log is burning, and even then if one log is just left by itself it often won't continue to burn and slowly goes out without a continual supply of smaller material to keep things going. I see this as an important piece of our own spiritual fires, as it were, and how we can strengthen the capacity (size of log) we can handle, but still need to continue with the small and simple basics to keep the flame alive.
It's a beautiful morning. I pushed through pull-ups and biceps curls, and will have to see about squeezing in some back flyes later. I followed through with putting away dishes and listening to scripture. I've ventured over to listening to Doctrine and Covenants to match the Sunday School lesson schedule to be sure I am familiar with the material as I could be called upon to teach Sunday School at any time.
Every so often in scripture there is a story about a man or woman of god that does something which seems a contradiction. Abraham and Sarah lying about their relationship comes to mind. It seems that even god recognizes occasions where a little deception may be protective. This by no means gives us free reign to bear false witness, but I find it fascinating. I was thinking on this after reading about Abinadi going back before Noah and his priests with a disguise so they couldn't recognize him. It's not that a disguise is necessarily a bad thing, but it does seem deceptive which is generally not the Lord's way of operating.
Still going strong - Made my bed, knelt for prayer, unloaded the dishwasher while listening to scriptures, Pull-ups, Body Rows, Back Flyes, and Biceps Curls in rest-pause sets all done this morning.
Lately I've really been finding value in the rest-pause set method with my workouts for the time efficiency. This has me taking a set to failure (as many repetitions as I can complete before giving out) and then resting just brief periods of 15-30 seconds before going again for a few more repetitions - essentially extending out the set into one long set with rests or pauses within it. I've been thinking about how spiritual growth comes after resistance as well. It does seem like to get the growth we need to become Christlike we need to push up against challenges to the point of exhaustion where we can only complete the trial by relying on God. Sometimes, these trials may surpass our ability to push through at first requiring some rest-pause action where we find some distraction or solace somewhere else for a while before facing the challenge again, thus extending our abilities to keep going.
Hi strength-seekers. Today I was able to finally get a new article put together going into some greater detail on things I've wanted to discuss for a while. I did so having also done my part to physically put on my strength with a short and effective workout. I hope that the article can help you to refine your journey to becoming even as (the Lord) is (3 Nephi 27:27)
Still doing pretty well at rebuilding myself into a stronger servant of the Lord. I'm half way through my leg workout for the day, resting a little before hitting the other leg. Morning prayers were a success kneeling at my bedside. I deviated a touch from personal scripture study last night to read material on teaching more effectively as the Savior taught/teaches. I still read a chapter with my family and listened to scripture and felt this was a reasonable adjustment for the night.
In Words of Mormon 1:14 we learn that, "in the strength of the Lord they did contend against their enemies, until they had slain... (and) driven them out of all the lands of their inheritance."
This morning I was listening in the book of Omni and there was some discussion about finding the people of Zarahemla and how their language had become corrupted and they were taught in the language of the Nephites. There was also some discussion about the Jaredites who interestingly avoided having there language lost while those around them did. I usually have just thought about this in terms of not having records to help preserve language among the people of Zarahemla, but wondered if there might be something more to think on about the importance of retaining uncorrupted language.
