In our scripture reading this week there were two things that stuck out to me.
The first thing is Samuel. I was amazed at the amount of faith and courage that he had. Enough courage to stand up for what he knew was right. He was willing to stand in front of all of those people and preach the gospel to them despite them throwing stones and arrows at him. The faith that he had as those arrows were coming towards him must have been incredible. The thought that came to me was:
Where would I be in all of this? Would I be one of the believers that stood by and listened as Samuel tried to share the gospel? Or would I be one of the ones throwing arrows?
The hope in my heart is that I would be one of the believers. However, would I cave in to the pressure from those around me that were throwing the stones? I would hope that I would be surrounded by people that would believe and have strong enough testimonies to hear through the crowds of non-believers.
The second thing that occurred to me was how quickly the people went from being wicked to righteous and back again. At first I thought that it was completely ridiculous that they flip flopped so much. Then I realized that it all stemmed from pride. Pride has a way of wiggling into even the most righteous hearts and planting seeds of jealousy, hate, entitlement, and many other feelings. When you feel more important than someone else, you start to have feelings in your heart that rather quickly turn you away from the Lord and his will.
So how can I prevent that from happening in my own life? I can be humble. I have had my fair share of humbling experiences that have taught me more about myself than I ever thought that I needed. But without being humble and teachable, I cannot hear what the Lord's will for me is. I need to heed his words and learn to turn my will over to Him. When I do that, the pride cannot lay hold in my heart. I just hope I can do that as I strive to be more like my Savior each day.
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