Casual Nourishment

I have had it in my mind to write this blog for a while now. While in high school I learned about this idea called labs (many of you may remember it came from the Bird's). It's where you take anything in life and see how it can relate to the gospel, or you take something from the gospel and find relationships to it in life. It's called labs because in science class you read the book in class and apply the knowledge you learned in the lab. So here is my lab.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE flowers. When I was working at a nursery a few years ago I learned a little about planting flower pots. Ever since then I have asked for flowers to pot for Mother's Day. This year I stumbled across this lovely arrangement of French Marigold's. While they are stinky little plants they were so colorful I just had to have them. As you can see they were a happy and beautiful little arrangement of flowers. When I first received these flowers (along with many others) I took very good care of them and made sure to get them watered daily. It wasn't too hot so if it didn't happen right away they didn't struggle too much. As time went on the summer got busy and these flowers were forgotten more and more often and my watering became casual. When the heat got to be too much I could tell and would quickly run in to get them some water. Too many times I was too late and the stress of the hot western sun scalded these poor plants. By the middle of August this is what that plant looked like.
There are still green parts to the flower and while it did look to be totally wasted there were a few flowers that were able to come back and survive, but the potential of the planted pot was never fully realized.


Many times in our lives we become too casual in our relationship with God. We hurry through our prayers. We read scriptures (or don't) in a hurry to get it done. We toss the things of God aside because we have so many other important things to do. When the hot sun beats down upon us our roots will not be sufficient to sustain us and we will spiritually wither and perhaps even die (spiritually). For this reason we need to be strong and immersed in the spirit of the Lord through diligent scripture study and meaningful prayer. Being rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ will not only save us, but it will help us to reach our full and beautiful potential. Reaching our full potential will allow us to be far more beautiful than we could ever hope to be alone. We must not be casual in the nourishment of our souls, but rather we should feast upon the scriptures. Then we will be able to survive the struggles and challenges of life.