Mold Me.

I decided this week to make a promise to the Lord to read my scriptures, daily.  I am in turn given the promise that through my daily pondering of the scriptures, understanding and enlightenment will be given unto me. Something so simple that I tend to have let the busyness of the world get away with me and I have neglected my scriptures, at least a continual pondering of them. I thought my calling as Gospel Doctrine Teacher last year would have whipped me in shape, then perhaps my calling as Relief Society president, it wasn't until I was faced with a heavy heart and some in-depth questions that I opened my eyes and truly recognized the importance of upholding my end of the bargain, to read my scriptures! It's like a diet, the only person you are letting down when you cheat, is yourself.

I have also been praying for charity lately, and to be able to see others through the eyes of the Lord, something I constantly struggle with. I remember even prior to becoming a member I would listen to a talk or hear a scripture and think, "Oh that would be really good for so and so." It makes me laugh because we all know that when you divert the attention from yourself to another person, YOU are the actual person that needs the advice or counsel.

This morning while reading a talk I came across this statement: "The key is to have our eyes wide open to our own faults and partially closed to the faults of others--not the other way around! The imperfections of others never release us from the need to work on our own shortcomings." 

I have a lot of shortcomings, many I am well aware of and others I have no doubt the Lord will make me aware of :) We tend to always ask for blessings or pray for things but neglect to refine ourselves. For example, "Lord I want to get married, bring me a husband." Rather than saying, "Lord, prepare me to be the person I need to be in order to have a worthy husband." I have found myself on my knees more recently than any time in my life, not only praying to the Lord but sitting in silence and listening to the Lord. Praying that he would mold and shape me into the person that not I want to be, but the person that He would have me be.

If only we spent as much time working on ourselves as we did focusing on the faults and shortcomings of others, we would allow the Lord to work in our lives, to make our weak things become strong. NEWSFLASH: We ALL have shortcomings, whether we choose to accept this fact or not is our own agency and free will.