When I was a child, during family home evenings, my family would often gather to learn the stories in the Bible and Book of Mormon. On occasion, we would memorize a verse from one of the LDS Standard Works. All of the stories taught in my youth have some application for us today.
I can recall one such lesson while living in California during my grade-school years. My father taught us the importance of doing first things first — organizing our schedules to make sure we accomplished the important tasks first before running off and doing the things we want to do. At the young age of 9, this meant getting my homework done right after school before going to play with my friends at the nearby park. The lesson was extremely applicable because my brothers and I had procrastination down to an art.
More than 20 years later, my father's lesson is still etched in my memory. I'll never forget the instruction, or the verse of scripture we memorized that night: Doctrine and Covenants 88:119.
"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and esta
blish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;"
While this entire verse of scripture gives us specific directions as to what our organization should be like, the first six words are the crux of what we need to be doing: organizing ourselves, preparing needful things.
Sometimes life can become a little convoluted and extremely difficult to navigate through with all the clutter we accumulate. We think about all the things we think we need, and all the stuff we think we need to do, when we really just end up creating busyness for ourselves — doing everything, accomplishing nothing.
We run around just to keep busy but never look at achieving the goals we set up for ourselves — and to think, it's only been a month and a half since we made New Year's resolutions. Isn't it ironic that even though we've grown up we still have the same desires as when we were children?
It's amazing, the stories we learn in the scriptures do have application in our personal lives.