It has been a long time since I last blogged. I kinda gave up blogging when I started doing Instagram. Also, as my kids got older, It became more important for me to keep their stories more private. In any case, I have been away.
This morning I was walking with my neighbor/friend Veronica. When we walk we almost always read a chapter from the Book of Mormon together. It just gives us a good start to the day physically and spiritually and we talk about what we read. After we read, I told Veronica that I have been trying to give a daily devotional or spiritual thought to my kids each day in addition to our family prayers and scripture study. She misheard me and thought I said I was blogging it and asked if I was blogging it on my blog.
LIGHTBULB MOMENT
WHY AM I NOT?? So, I am back! I am going to be blogging me daily spiritual thoughts that I am doing with my kids so that they can be recorded for my posterity. And y'all are welcome to them too. Feel free to add any of your thoughts or questions in the comments. As always, I just ask that you keep it positive and sincere. I won't publish comments that are spam or hurtful/negative.
So, here is today's thought:
GO BEFORE; REARWARD
This morning we read 3 Nephi 21. The last verse repeats a phrase I had noticed a couple of there times in Chapter 20 and 21. In Chapter 20, Jesus says, "for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel shall be your rearward." And in Chapter 21 Jesus says, "for I will go before them, saith the Father, and I will be their rearward."
In both these verses, reading them this time, I took them to mean that God the Father is going before us, and Jesus Christ - the God of Israel - the God of the Old Testament, is our rearward.
God created a plan for us. He created a world for us to live on and sent us to Earth to parents of some sort or another. He placed our spirits into these mortal bodies knowing in advance the trials and tests and blessings and helps we would be given. He is mindful of each and every one of His children and has prepared the way before us. He sends prophets, scriptures, earthly ministering angels, divine peace, the light of Christ, and ultimately He sent His Only Begotten who did nothing save the Father commanded Him, to show us the Way and make it possible to return HOME again someday.
He has prepared the Way, he has gone before us.
But He knew we would screw up. That is an inevitable part of living in this mortal world. We would be hurt through no fault of our own and we would hurt others unintentionally and we would just make bad choices that we would come to regret. And thus He prepared The Way, Jesus Christ, to be our Rearward.
Jesus Christ has our back. We need to stick close to Him. It is He who can clean up after our mortal messes. It is He that we can lean back on when we are hurting and need rest. He will not keep everything bad from happening to us. All of that is part of living a mortal life. But He will have our back when we need His help to strengthen us, put our broken pieces back together, make our sins white, and aid those we have injured along the way.
May we live this day tied to the Savior in our thoughts and actions, knowing wherever the day takes us, the Lord has gone before us and the God of Israel is our rearward. We are not alone.
