Today I read 2 Nephi 5, where Nephi and his followers separate from Laman and his followers. Several things stood out to me in this chapter. The first is about the temple. Nephi built his followers a temple, like unto Solomon's temple so that they could perform their sacrifices and ordinances in the appropriate manner. This reminds me of the early saints that until the temple was completed, they were allowed to perform baptisms for the dead in the Mississippi river. I'm sure the Nephites did their ordinances for the 8 years while they were in the wilderness, but they wanted to do things the right way. It's nice that the people were so driven to do things according to the Lord's will.
The next thing that I saw that impressed me was actually the very next verse where Nephi states he taught his people to be hard working and industrious. I am far and away not the person who loves to work and loves to work with his hands. Matter of fact as I'm sure most of you know, I'm quite lazy. However, I do know the value of good hard work and sometimes even enjoy it. I had a vegetable garden last year that I really enjoyed working in and thoroughly enjoyed the crops from it too! :) However, about 5 years ago I had a friend point out to me the wording in Moses 1:39 how it uses the word "work" in there and how intentional that was. The Lord, works. And if our God is a God of work, then shouldn't we be? I don't think there's any surprise there that the devil works to get people to be idle. We've all heard the old adage, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop". The really funny thing about all of that is, that the devil works too. Night and day. He's definitely not lazy or idle.
There's also something about work that makes you feel good. My wife was shocked to learn that for 99% of what I do, I take no pride in a job well done. I am not the person to point out "look what I did", usually. There are some exceptions. However, even I will tell you that working with your hands and doing good, honest labor makes you feel good. If I am ever having a really bad day, my favorite remedy is honestly to forget about it and go to my job. My job has a way of cheering me up that even my wife can't emulate some days. I think it is because the nature of almost all jobs is service. Service helps us to forget about ourselves and focus on what we can do for others. And it feels good. There are some jobs which are totally self oriented, and especially if you are single and don't have a family to provide for, I can see how you would miss this. But for the more part, the best remedy for depression and self pity that I personally know of, is good honest solid work. It's selfish of me, but for a lot of reasons I sometimes wish I had a job that was more physically demanding, so I could feel even better than I currently do! Both physically and emotionally. Until tomorrow.
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