Today I read Doctrine and Covenants section 88, a very, very long section. There is a lot talked about in this section but most of it has to do with the Second Coming of Christ and with the life after this one. I've often wondered why so many people are preoccupied with the Second Coming of Christ. If we live our lives the way He has told us to, meaning we live like He was going to come back today, then we have nothing to worry about. I wonder if the people who are concerned with it are those that somehow think that if they knew when He was coming then they could be good just long enough to have a reward. As we have discussed in the past, such thinking reflects a total lack of understanding on the part of the individual for the way the Gospel of Jesus Christ works.
The verse that stood out to me though is one that many of us have heard dozens of times before this. It is verse 124 and it says, "Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated." I have always liked this verse and it never fails to amaze me just how much is packed into one little verse.
Cease to be idle. That is a commandment that we have been given our whole lives by our earthly parents. Think about your childhood, if it was anything like mine my parents were constantly telling me to go play outside and quite watching TV, to help my dad with chores around the house, to make something of myself. Sadly now a days, I don't think quite as many parents urge their children to be active or teach them how to work or the value of a dollar. But we learn from scriptures that our God is not idle and He works, why shouldn't we?
Cease to be unclean. This should come as no surprise to any who have been baptized. All the scriptures teach that the purpose of baptism is for the remission of sins and that we should be walking with a newness of life, meaning that our old life of sin and debauchery needs to end. This is of course much harder to accomplish than we think. It takes daily, dedicated effort and never ends. Each and every day we need to continue to try and overcome our temptations and our sins. And the longer we live the commandments, the more we enjoy living them.
Cease to find fault one with another. Have you ever met someone that no matter what you said, they could find something wrong with it? Perhaps it was the way that you said it, perhaps it is what you said, perhaps they just thought it was a down right dumb thing to say. Sadly, I hear about this happening mostly from people's spouse. It is really sad to me that the person who would treat someone this way would be the one person in your life that you should be most close to and most forgiving of your faults. I personally don't think it is any surprise that the Lord does not want us to pick at each other and to magnify one another's faults. He wants us to become Zion, or one in heart, mind and spirit. Can we do that if we are continually finding fault with one another? No we cannot.
Cease to sleep longer than is needful. We are mortal and our bodies need rest and down time. Yet only a certain amount. Studies and science have shown that to operate at peak efficiency the human adult needs between 6-8 hours of sleep a night. Now, I should clarify that we need 6-8 hours of restful sleep. Some people suffer from sleep apnea or other debilitating sleep disorders that mean even if that person is getting the appropriate amount of sleep, their body is not rejuvenating during the sleep cycles. If that is the case, the answer is not to get more, or less sleep, but rather to fix the problem that is causing you to not have good quality of sleep in the first place. For most people it is either stress, weight or a combination of both. But this one goes hand in hand with the being idle portion, we need to make sure that we are anxiously engaged in a good work.
Going hand in hand with not sleeping too long is the final command from the Lord in this verse, that of retiring to bed early so that you can arise early. Now, this is one that very many people, including me have a problem with. I have never enjoyed getting up early, ever. Not as a child, not as a teenager, not as a missionary, a young adult and not now. I have always been more awake at night and always sleep better in the late, late portion of the night and early morning than I do during the normal evening hours. I don't know why that is and it could be entirely my fault and could be that I have trained my body to be that way. But I think it is important to try and comply with this commandment as much as you can. I say as much as you can because some people are just not able to go to sleep at a "normal" hour. For example I work until 12 am each night and don't get home until almost 12:30 am. However, I try and be in bed by 1:30 - 2 am nonetheless and no matter what time I go to sleep, I am always up by 9 am. And that's they key, I think as long as you are doing what you can do to comply with this commandment, the Lord will bless you for it.
So there you have it, the breakdown of the commandments the Lord in this verse. I chose this verse in particular because it has application here and now and is something we can all relate to. It's also a verse that as parents here on earth, we need to make sure we are teaching our children. As we strive to live these commands ourselves the Lord will bless us and give us strength just as He will by living the Word of Wisdom. Try it and see, you will not be surprised. Until tomorrow.
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