So during the last few weeks my summertime goal plan has been trying to formulate in my mind. I had decided on a few things: I wanted to read the Old Testament and thoroughly clean and organize the rooms in my house.
Today, as I was starting to look at reading schedules, I came across a fascinating one where the reading chart is chronologically set up. I read the Old Testament all the way through when I was 18 and I've tried to read it all the way through several times since. I had forgotten that the timeline was switched around and the books weren't in order. I immediately knew that I wanted to read it chronologically.
The link below is a schedule to read, in chronological order, the whole Bible (Old and New Testaments) in a year. The plan is to read about 3-4 chapters a day, and if you start on Jan 1st, you can finish the OT at the end of September. I want to finish the OT before school starts again, so I figured out if I started today and read 2 reading assignments a day, I will be done with the OT six days before school starts, which is August 18th.
I read Genesis 1-7 today and I'm hoping to stick with this. And then I'm guessing I'll continue on and read the New Testament chronologically as well.
http://www.esv.org/assets/pdfs/rp.chronological.pdf
And this link is to a page where the same schedule is used, but you can click on the reading assignments and read them from the New International Version of the Bible:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-reading-plan/chronological.html
And this link gives you 5 reading plans (beginning to end, chronological, historical,...) with many versions to choose from (different texts like the King James version as well as different languages):
http://www.ewordtoday.com/year/
So, I'm pretty excited about that.
Besides organizing my house this summer, I also want to go back to the old goals of eating better, exercising more, working on my family history, etc.
Reading plan for this week (and being Spring Break, it shouldn't be hard to accomplish):
Monday: Genesis 8-11; Job 1-5 (I didn't know that Job lived that early in the world's history!)
Tuesday: Job 6-13
Wednesday: Job 14-20
Thursday: Job 21-28
Friday:Job 29-34
Saturday: Job 35-39
Sunday: Job 40-42 and Genesis 12-15
And of course, next weekend is GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! Saturday and Sunday will be filled with 8 hours + of spiritual messages. Can't wait. I need to come up with a list of questions I want answered...so far the only question on my list is whether it's OK not to attend Young Women's Camp in June.
It's gonna be a good week.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
working on my talk for Sunday
Great article from John W. Welch and the Religious Studies Center
https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/book-mormon-treasury/19-ten-testimonies-jesus-christ-book-mormon
Names of Christ study
http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2007/12/names-of-christ-complete-unit-study.html#.UqATJuJPnrk
https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/book-mormon-treasury/19-ten-testimonies-jesus-christ-book-mormon
Names of Christ study
http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2007/12/names-of-christ-complete-unit-study.html#.UqATJuJPnrk
Sunday, October 20, 2013
talk written to give in the Austin branch, rough version
We “Come Unto Him” by Doing the Small and Simple Things and We Will Find Rest and Joy
I. Introduction of our family
Brief intro of conversion and family.
II. Introduction of my talk
We often notice themes in General Conference. When asked about this past GC, several said missionary work was the theme they heard. And even though we have missionaries out from our family, the main thing I noticed was the balm for the wounded soul that was offered by several speakers. Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden , and I will give you rest . 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
How do we “come unto Him” so that we may rest? We come unto Him by doing the small and simple things we’ve been asked to do.
III. Small and Simple Things
Elder David A. Bednar and his wife, Susan spoke at BYU’s Women’s Conference in April 2011. The title of their talk was By Small and Simple Things Great Things Are Brought to Pass.
When her husband was in the doctoral program at Purdue and she had a very active 2 year old and an infant, Sis Bednar asked for a priesthood blessing to help her cope with her situation--2 little kids, husband hardly ever home, and a small income. She said the blessing advised her to exercise, get more sleep, eat regular meals, have meaningful prayer morning and night and engage in more purposeful and consistent scripture study, and if she did that, she would receive the physical and spiritual tools to cope with her circumstances and the discouragement she was feeling.
She balked a little at first because they were typical Sunday School answers and she could rationalize away each item. She likened it to the story of Naaman in the Old Testament who was sent to be healed by the king and the servant of the prophet Elisha came out and told him to wash 7 times in the river Jordan. Naaman hesitated and his servant told him that if he had been asked to do some great thing, would he not have done it? Naaman went and washed and was healed.
Sis Bednar said she would have seen the wisdom at first if her blessing had told her to do something great, like take a cruise to Hawaii or have a make over, but she humbled herself and found that these things really did allow her to run and not be weary and walk and not faint.
The things that Sis Bednar was told in her blessing dealt with her physical body and her spirit. We are here to gain a body and to show that we will follow Christ…or, in other words, learn to have our spirit control that body--obedience.
There are a few things said about Christ taking care of His body. We know he grew in wisdom and stature. And we know He took care of His spirit and that it was in control of His body. He knew the scriptures, he fasted to prepare for His ministry…
If we take care of our bodies and our spirits, we will be following Christ and becoming more like him.
IV. Adam’s Obedience
One of my favorite scripture stories that causes me to ponder is where Adam and Eve, after leaving the Garden of Eden, are told to make animal sacrifices to the Lord, without understanding the meaning behind it--that it was in the similitude of the sacrifice that Christ was to make for our sins many years in the future. I often wonder how long Adam was obedient, not understanding why he was doing what he was doing, before the angel finally taught him that the sacrifices were to help them look forward to the Atonement. How long am I willing to do what I’ve been asked even when I don’t see the picture?
I teach in Young Women’s. Last week’s lesson was on developing Christlike attributes. One of the points of our lesson was that our experiences here can, if we allow them, lead us to do gain Christlike attributes. As we serve we can learn humility, compassion, charity, selflessness, and so on. Just the daily course of our lives brings lessons that can be learned if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.
That is why keeping the covenants we have made with Heavenly Father changes us, makes us more like Him and Christ, and prepares us to live in their presence. As President Thomas S. Monson said in CG, making the gospel of Jesus Christ the center of our lives is what will pull us through.
Making the gospel the center of our lives means following Christ, doing what He did, though maybe not as well or perfectly as He did, and doing what has been asked of us.
V. Denise’s friend (Living the Gospel makes us Christlike, so what’s preventing us from doing that?)
Now, what we notice about conference usually applies to what is happening in our lives. Maybe I saw the comfort angle being offered because I know people who have been struggling. For example, my sister’s friend and her family were considered stalwarts of their ward. But the wife felt that what she did was never good enough--no matter what she did, there was always another step to take, and there was never an end--never a resting place. She felt pressure to always improve and felt she was never good enough the way she was. The gospel didn’t bring her rest or joy, but brought stress to her life. I say the gospel did, but I don’t think that’s totally correct. Her actions and reactions to her life are what brought the stress.
To escape these negative feelings, she, her husband who had served in the Bishopric, and their 3 teenaged boys, stopped going to church. I do not know this woman personally, but I wondered why she found trying to live the gospel so difficult.
What I think it really might be is that we feel overwhelmed by all we take upon herself…we don’t just going the extra mile, we run faster than we have strength. We are depleted and depressed and moving too fast, as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talked about in CG this month.
Aren’t scriptures and prayer the things that replenish us and fill us up? Church and Temple attendance
VI. Living the Gospel as it was meant to be lived
The gospel is here to help us return to Heavenly Father. If we don’t think that is happening, it’s not the gospel that is missing something, but somehow we are missing something in our application of it.
We are struggling, imperfect, and exhausted even, as Elder Holland mentioned. But it’s in living the gospel that we receive strength for our struggle, move toward perfection, and can be renewed and find rest. We don’t find rest by taking a break from living the gospel, as much as Satan tries to convince us of that.
Elder Edward Dube had a great quote that I loved. He said that it’s not so much as where we have been or what we have done, but where we are willing to go that matters. Are we willing to follow in the footsteps of Christ? That’s what counts. We have to remember that it’s in the following of Christ that we hope to become like Him.
“Our loving Heavenly wants us to become more like Him. God understands that we get there, not in an instant, but by taking one step at a time.” Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
I. Introduction of our family
Brief intro of conversion and family.
II. Introduction of my talk
We often notice themes in General Conference. When asked about this past GC, several said missionary work was the theme they heard. And even though we have missionaries out from our family, the main thing I noticed was the balm for the wounded soul that was offered by several speakers. Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden , and I will give you rest . 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
How do we “come unto Him” so that we may rest? We come unto Him by doing the small and simple things we’ve been asked to do.
III. Small and Simple Things
Elder David A. Bednar and his wife, Susan spoke at BYU’s Women’s Conference in April 2011. The title of their talk was By Small and Simple Things Great Things Are Brought to Pass.
When her husband was in the doctoral program at Purdue and she had a very active 2 year old and an infant, Sis Bednar asked for a priesthood blessing to help her cope with her situation--2 little kids, husband hardly ever home, and a small income. She said the blessing advised her to exercise, get more sleep, eat regular meals, have meaningful prayer morning and night and engage in more purposeful and consistent scripture study, and if she did that, she would receive the physical and spiritual tools to cope with her circumstances and the discouragement she was feeling.
She balked a little at first because they were typical Sunday School answers and she could rationalize away each item. She likened it to the story of Naaman in the Old Testament who was sent to be healed by the king and the servant of the prophet Elisha came out and told him to wash 7 times in the river Jordan. Naaman hesitated and his servant told him that if he had been asked to do some great thing, would he not have done it? Naaman went and washed and was healed.
Sis Bednar said she would have seen the wisdom at first if her blessing had told her to do something great, like take a cruise to Hawaii or have a make over, but she humbled herself and found that these things really did allow her to run and not be weary and walk and not faint.
The things that Sis Bednar was told in her blessing dealt with her physical body and her spirit. We are here to gain a body and to show that we will follow Christ…or, in other words, learn to have our spirit control that body--obedience.
There are a few things said about Christ taking care of His body. We know he grew in wisdom and stature. And we know He took care of His spirit and that it was in control of His body. He knew the scriptures, he fasted to prepare for His ministry…
If we take care of our bodies and our spirits, we will be following Christ and becoming more like him.
IV. Adam’s Obedience
One of my favorite scripture stories that causes me to ponder is where Adam and Eve, after leaving the Garden of Eden, are told to make animal sacrifices to the Lord, without understanding the meaning behind it--that it was in the similitude of the sacrifice that Christ was to make for our sins many years in the future. I often wonder how long Adam was obedient, not understanding why he was doing what he was doing, before the angel finally taught him that the sacrifices were to help them look forward to the Atonement. How long am I willing to do what I’ve been asked even when I don’t see the picture?
I teach in Young Women’s. Last week’s lesson was on developing Christlike attributes. One of the points of our lesson was that our experiences here can, if we allow them, lead us to do gain Christlike attributes. As we serve we can learn humility, compassion, charity, selflessness, and so on. Just the daily course of our lives brings lessons that can be learned if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.
That is why keeping the covenants we have made with Heavenly Father changes us, makes us more like Him and Christ, and prepares us to live in their presence. As President Thomas S. Monson said in CG, making the gospel of Jesus Christ the center of our lives is what will pull us through.
Making the gospel the center of our lives means following Christ, doing what He did, though maybe not as well or perfectly as He did, and doing what has been asked of us.
V. Denise’s friend (Living the Gospel makes us Christlike, so what’s preventing us from doing that?)
Now, what we notice about conference usually applies to what is happening in our lives. Maybe I saw the comfort angle being offered because I know people who have been struggling. For example, my sister’s friend and her family were considered stalwarts of their ward. But the wife felt that what she did was never good enough--no matter what she did, there was always another step to take, and there was never an end--never a resting place. She felt pressure to always improve and felt she was never good enough the way she was. The gospel didn’t bring her rest or joy, but brought stress to her life. I say the gospel did, but I don’t think that’s totally correct. Her actions and reactions to her life are what brought the stress.
To escape these negative feelings, she, her husband who had served in the Bishopric, and their 3 teenaged boys, stopped going to church. I do not know this woman personally, but I wondered why she found trying to live the gospel so difficult.
What I think it really might be is that we feel overwhelmed by all we take upon herself…we don’t just going the extra mile, we run faster than we have strength. We are depleted and depressed and moving too fast, as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talked about in CG this month.
Aren’t scriptures and prayer the things that replenish us and fill us up? Church and Temple attendance
VI. Living the Gospel as it was meant to be lived
The gospel is here to help us return to Heavenly Father. If we don’t think that is happening, it’s not the gospel that is missing something, but somehow we are missing something in our application of it.
We are struggling, imperfect, and exhausted even, as Elder Holland mentioned. But it’s in living the gospel that we receive strength for our struggle, move toward perfection, and can be renewed and find rest. We don’t find rest by taking a break from living the gospel, as much as Satan tries to convince us of that.
Elder Edward Dube had a great quote that I loved. He said that it’s not so much as where we have been or what we have done, but where we are willing to go that matters. Are we willing to follow in the footsteps of Christ? That’s what counts. We have to remember that it’s in the following of Christ that we hope to become like Him.
“Our loving Heavenly wants us to become more like Him. God understands that we get there, not in an instant, but by taking one step at a time.” Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
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