Half of my Heart

As you can guess from some of my past blogs, I am a huge music fan.  I always have a song playing in my head and continue to add more songs to my "mental playlist."  The song Half of my Heart, by John Mayer featuring Taylor Swift, has been a recent addition.  The song is about a man who can't seem to put his whole heart into anything.  The lyrics go:

Half of my heart's got a real good imagination
Half of my heart's got you
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you that
Half of my heart won't do

The heart is an interesting topic.  It's important to always keep our hearts in the right place, and to put our whole heart into things that we do.  When Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was, he responded with, "...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," (Matt. 22:37, emphasis added).  All of our heart is required.  If we go through life putting only half of our heart on the altar, we won't make it.

John Mayer put it well: "Half of [our] heart won't do."  In this life, there are dozens of decoys and distractions that drag us down the half hearted highway.  We must not let them get in the way of the strait and narrow path set by the Savior.  His way is the only way.  May we all more fully give our hearts to the Lord.  When we do, we will find ourselves on the whole hearted path to heaven.

Use it or Lose it

I've always been a big music person.  Ever since I can remember, I've been playing music.  Playing the guitar is my most recently acquired musical talent.  After I left on my mission, I didn't have as easy access to guitar as I did back home.  But when I was in my first area, I had a couple opportunities to play guitar again.  I was real excited, then once I started picking and strumming, I realized that I had lost a lot of what I knew.  Many songs that I used to play had vanished from my memory.  I was devastated!

Our knowledge and testimony will dwindle if we stop nourishing it as well.  We need to continually improve our talents and skills.  Alma, a Book of Mormon prophet said, "...Let us nourish it with great care, that it may get root, that it may grow up, and bring forth fruit unto us...but if ye neglect [it], and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root..." (Alma 32: 37-38).  We must nourish the skills and talents that we have so that when we need to be an instrument in the Lords hand, we will be fine tuned and ready to play. 

We need to continue to exercise those things in our life.  If we slack off on them, then our knowledge and ability will diminish.  And when that day comes, you will feel as I did when I picked up the guitar after a couple of months...devastated!  So do the little things every day, practice what you preach, apply what you learn, and you will never lose it.

Saturday's Gone?

One of my favorite musicians, Jack Johnson, wrote a song called Taylor which not only is a catchy song, but it has great lyrics as well.  There is one line that sticks out to me every time I listen to it though.  It says, "He thinks that singing on Sunday's gonna save his soul, now that Saturday's gone."  This line gets me thinking about what religion is, and how big of a role should it play in our lives.

Let's start with the first question, what is religion?  My first thoughts would be something you believe.  As I pondered more and more about it, I realized that it's much more than just a belief.  Religion is something you live.  It's a way of life. 

Now for the second question, how big of a role should religion play in our lives?  My first thoughts are we have church on Sunday and occasionally a youth group activity in the middle of the week.  Those are the things that involve going to church, but do we have to physically go to the church for it to have an impact in our lives?  Absolutely not.  We have to take the things we learn there and apply them to our lives to help others and ourselves.

Matthew 7:21 reads, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."  We must live our religion in order to enter into the Kingdom of heaven, not just believe it.  We must follow in the footsteps of the only perfect man to walk the face of the earth, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He will never lead us astray.