For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them...Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord (2 Ne 4:15-16)
This is often how I feel about the gospel; but there are times when I become a little more lackadaisical in my spiritual efforts. Every now and then it seems that those "small and simple" day-to-day duties of reading my scriptures, or saying my prayers, or even worshiping in the temple, etc, become...rote. There are other times when my life gets rather hectic, and finding the time for those daily acts of worship becomes difficult. (I know, I know; I'm totally alone in this! Who ever really gets *that* busy! Call me crazy...)
Lately, my life has made a few turns. In the midst of these changes I've been trying to re-figure out how to juggle the balls of life. In many ways I've been successful at getting most of those balls juggled fairly well, but my scripture study has been one ball that just hasn't stayed air borne too well. I have been determined, though, to make a more concerted effort to reestablish the habits I had of studying my scriptures daily. I'm still working on getting the "daily" part of that goal down, but I'm doing significantly better.
But I mention all this mostly as a set up to what I really wanted to express.
About two weeks ago I was ready to crash into bed, when I was suddenly hit with a strong desire to read my scriptures. I acted on that feeling, and ended up reading for quite a bit longer than I thought I had the strength or acuity for at that particular moment. I was reading in 2nd Nephi 9. This happens to be one of my favorite chapters. I remember that this was the chapter that night because part of the reason it had been a while since I'd last read my scriptures was that this was the next chapter sequentially in my reading. It's a longish chapter, and I wanted to read it when I had time to read the chapter in its entirety. So I kept putting off reading my scriptures due to "lack of time."
Anyway...
Reflecting now I don't recall gleaning any particularly stunning insights as I read, but I felt like I had been dehydrated for a really long time, and was finally getting a drink. And I couldn't stop; I couldn't get enough to slake my thirst. I felt this glow start to well up inside me. I knew with distinct clarity that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, is scripture, and is another Testament of the Christ. I felt the overwhelming peace of Heavenly Father's love.
I love the scriptures. My soul really does delight in the things of the Lord. I love moments when I can simply be still, ponder, and enjoy the quiet stirrings of the Spirit. And that's the point. I get so exhausted by the pace of this world, and my soul begins to hunger. So despite the ever demanding tasks of life, and the seeming lack of time, and even though I'm still no master juggler, I hope to figure out how to prioritize sufficiently to be able to incorporate that particular ball...even if that means dropping another.
