What good is a gift if we don’t use it?

“For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  (Mark 8:36)

Next to John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” that scripture in Mark is probably the most important in all the scriptures. First we must believe in Christ and second we need to follow him. What good is a gift if we don’t use it? What good does it do if we believe in Christ and know that he is the Savior, that he can heal us and yet we do nothing about it?

It sounds foolish and yet many of us, including me, have fallen in to that trap. I know God lives, I know that Jesus is the way, to eternal life and yet I fell into mediocrity.  I was coasting I said, after my husband died. I went through the motions. I was grieving they said, but I missed so many rich blessings. I went to church out of habit I think. I didn’t intend to sleep through the messages, but I did. I was surrounded by a feast, but I went away hungry.

In this last conference Sister Reeves gave a tremendous scrumptious talk. She said that, “The only things that really needs to be accomplished in the home are …” and she listed daily scripture study and family prayer among other things. She said as a family they were trying to do those things, but they often were neglected. They changed their focus and that’s what happened to me when I finally woke up and discovered how far away I had coasted. Isn’t it in the scriptures somewhere that the devil leads us away with a flaxen cord?  I was doing the right thing. I was in church, but I may as well have been in bed asleep.  But as Sister Reeves suggested I changed my focus. I get out of life or any activity exactly what I put into it. So what to do? For goodness sake don’t dwell on the past, but forgive yourself and move on.