Using Your Head

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I find that reading the scriptures at the beginning of the day helps me stay in focus and fixed on doing what’s right. Do I do it faithfully? I have to say no. However, it’s something that I always strive to do.

Is this something that you struggle with?

Let me share a quote I found. It’s from Bruce T. Harper:

“Perhaps we were not much different from many other families in the Church when it came to studying the scriptures. …Finally, we decided to dedicate ourselves to gaining a habit of scripture reading. To help us in achieving this goal, we adopted an approach presented by Carvel Whiting, our stake Sunday school president.

“His method was simple. He made the habit of reading something each day the primary objective of his program. The goal was to establish an attitude, to raise the scriptures in our awareness. He did not specify how much we should study each day, nor did he suggest that we study in a specific way.

“Using this simple approach, we could read a few verses or ten pages on any given day. We could read through the scriptures sequentially, or we could study topics. … We could even set a secondary goal to read a chapter a day (or half an hour, or five pages), but if we did not always meet that secondary goal, we were still having success and maintaining our scripture study habit as long as we read even one verse during the day.”

I usually try to read during the week the assignment for the following Sunday school lesson. But I like the idea of reading non-sequentially. If following a structured reading schedule is not something that appeals to you, skipping around is a good alternative.

I did something interesting today. I’ve mentioned before that we’re going through a remodel. To save money, we committed ourselves to doing all the painting in the house. So I’m painting and thought ‘it’s too quiet in here,’ then I thought I could listen to some music, since the room right now doesn’t have a TV set. Just then the idea came to me that I could listen to the latest Ensign while I paint the walls. So I put on my earphones and plugged them into my Smartphone which has the Mormon Channel app and I just listened to the January Ensign’s articles being read to me. I took advantage of resources at hand and I got to do two things at the same time.

If we have the technology, we should use it.

As always, we’d appreciate your comments.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Friday, 14 January, please click  here.