Living Your Religion

Today I read Alma 31, where Alma and his friends start their mission to the Zoramites. The part of the chapter that stood out to me was the fact that Alma observed that the Zoramites went to church one day a week and then never spoke about God at all again until the next week when they would say the same prayer as everyone else.

There is a lot of this going on in our day and age too, even among the LDS population. I even fell into the category for a period of my life. I remember hearing a story once about Joseph Smith being asked what made the Latter-day Saints different from other religions. He said it was the gift of the Holy Ghost and truly he was right. However, it could just as easily be said, we live our religion every day.

Now, there are of course many, many people who faithfully adhere to the tenants of their chosen religion and who pray many times a day and who make it known that they love God and fear Him. But sadly in this day and age at least in America, they are the vast minority. Most people may claim to be religious and claim they fear God, but do not live the most basic of commandments, let alone the principles of their own religion. Just as there are many, far too many, Latter-day Saints that do not live their religion either.

I remember the first time I heard the term Molly Mormon and Peter Priesthood and how they were meant to be derogatory terms for people who followed the commandments a little too closely. Now if you had someone call you that and you were to ask them what's wrong with living the commandments perfectly, they would exclaim that is not what they mean. However, I feel that if someone were to call me a Peter Priesthood, my response would simply be, "Thank you". I would take it as a compliment that I was known as someone who would not live a wild life and disobey God in all that I do.

Yet people all too often hate to be referred to as a "good two shoes". Why is that? Why is it when someone calls us what we are STRIVING FOR, do we get so bent out of shape and take the attitude instead of, "I can be bad if I want to" and then break some law or commandment. Aren't we trying to be perfect? I sure thought that was the goal here. So why is it so horrible to have someone tease us about how well we are doing?

At the various jobs I've had when someone would say something along the lines of "Geeze, Fred. You just don't do anything bad do you?" I would smile and say, "Not if I can help it." That is the goal. To have people recognize us for who we are, ambassadors of Christ. We are striving to be like Him. To do the things He would do if He were here. We should be grateful when someone tries to make fun of us for being too good. It means we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

To live our religion is to live so that people can see Christ through us. So that when people ask us if we are a Latter-day Saint, it is no surprise to them that we say, yes we are. To live like Alma lived his life. When he went to Ammonihah, everyone there already knew who he was and what he stood for. That is the kind of life I want to lead. The kind of life that people apologize to me when they swear in my presence, the kind of life that I am not afraid to call Christ my friend. The kind of life I can be proud to have my daughter see me live. That is what it means to live your religion. And it is a good life if I do say so myself. Until tomorrow.