Come cast your burden on the Lord

We had a great lesson today. The question was posed: "What causes stress or pain or is burdensome in your life?"

Replies

• School
• Seminary (I agreed)
• Sports
• Parents
• Death
• Divorce
• Disease
• Sin

OBJECT LESSON! I asked for the strongest in the class to come forward. I expected one of my football players to stand, but they backed down. Hannah Brown laughed and said she could do it. Nonetheless, Adam Gibby (not to be outdone) bravely stepped forward to participate!

For each item listed above, Adam was asked to hold a church hymnal with his arms outstretched forward from his body. Some things caused more stress than others, so multiple hymnals were added. At the end, Adam was visibly shaking while trying to hold the books up.

"Are you tired?"
"YES!"
"Do you want help?"
"PLEASE!"

Of all the burdens listed above, which can we "cast" upon the Lord? Some said "only sin". We discussed the power of the Atonement; how our Savior can comfort us in ALL things and has truly felt ALL of our sins, pains and burdens. It's not possible to go it alone. We all need the Atonement.

We ended with the passage from Matthew 11:28-30:

28 ¶ ^aCome unto me, all ye that ^blabour and are heavy laden, and I will give you ^crest.

29 Take my ^ayoke upon you, and ^blearn of me; for I am ^cmeek and ^dlowly in ^eheart: and ye shall find ^frest unto your souls.

30 For my yoke is ^aeasy, and my burden is light.

Repentance is a sweet blessing our Father has given to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. And when we repent, we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Self Assessments

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said that "There is, in fact, no such thing as neutrality where the gospel is concerned".

We discussed this quote today and talked about how it might relate to Matthew 6:24. We each took a moment to think to ourselves if we're "positively" or "negatively" charged in the gospel.

No hands were raised and no experiences shared. But pondering and personal reflection took place. Self-assessments are good.

Real Life stories of Faith!

Brother Gibby shared an experience his son, Adam, had this last week. While at an academic leadership conference, some of Adam's acquaintances learned that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

In a nutshell, they began to "tell him what he believed". Adam stood up for his beliefs, cited New Testament scriptures and bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel! YEAH!

My seminary batteries have been charged! Thanks Adam!

Obedience & Scripture Study

Jennifer Wall gave a devotional today that changed the direction of the lesson. She shared 2 Nephi 2:27:

Wherefore, men are ^afree according to the ^bflesh; and ^call things are ^dgiven them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to ^echoose ^fliberty and eternal ^glife, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be ^hmiserable like unto himself.

I felt impressed to talk a little bit about obedience. We talked for awhile about D&C 130:20-21. There are blessings to be had by paying tithing, obeying the Word of Wisdom and communicating with the Father through Christ in heartfelt prayer. These faithful students will be blessed for attending seminary.

To my class WAKE UP! :-)

My goal is for each of you to get into the habit of daily scripture study. I know that if you can master this that everything else will fall into place!

Beautiful Attitudes

Last week we learned about the "Beatitudes" or "Beautiful Attitudes". We listed them on the board, discussed their meanings and finished by discussing President Harold B. Lee's thoughts regarding the Beatitudes:

"The Beatitudes...have been referred to...as the preparation necessary for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. ...They embody in fact THE CONSTITUTION FOR A PERFECT LIFE"

A checklist for perfection? We agreed that it's pretty "cool" to have such a list. And while it's impossible for each of us to lead a perfect life, it's certainly within reason to become perfected in a few things while in this life. A challenge was extended to pick a "Beautiful Attitude" to practice in the coming weeks and to ask, in prayer, for opportunities to practice!

New Testament Jeopardy

Friday was Jeopardy day. We split into 3 groups and tested scripture mastery knowledge. One team was beating the others quite handily, so I said I would give 1500 extra bonus points if any member of a team could QUOTE the scripture mastery after answering the question correctly.

Josh Austin pulled through by quoting John 14:15 to give his team the bonus and tie the game. Unfortunately, I don't like ties. So we entered the lightning round with 1 final question worth 1 point (though Kyle Wall wanted to arm wrestle for the win).

Team "Mountie" took home the win with a score 3201. I told Kyle I wouldn't arm wrestle as part of the class...but would do it afterwords if he still felt up to it. :-) Long story short - he still felt up to it and his recovery is going nicely.

FYI - we used the jeopardy game that comes with the Ken Alford scripture mastery resource pack: http://www.kenalford.com/