Potatoes

Today’s Say Go Be Do seems small, but it was profoundly instructive to me.

 

I was preparing potatoes to be baked in the oven when I had the thought that I should poke them to let the steam escape.  I’d been told in the past that if you don’t do this, the hot air in the potato will expand and might explode, so I’d done it pretty faithfully.  Today, I wondered if this was really the case, or if people were just making it up.  I thought “I bet that is just one of those cooking stories that happens every once in a while but that we all just obey because we’re “supposed to.”  

I finished washing the potatoes, and again had the thought to poke them.  It would take minimal effort to do so, but again I justified myself: “Good thing I know how to create so well.  I’ll just set the intention that they’ll be fine and they will be.”

Fast forward about an hour.  I was sitting on the couch having a lesson from my home teachers who were talking about how when we obey we gain more knowledge, until we eventually know all things.  All of the sudden, there was a “Pooof” sound from the oven.  I went over to see what was going on. 

You already know the end of the story.  Lo and behold, a potato I was baking actually HAD exploded all over my oven.  I’d thought for a bit that I “knew better” and that potatoes wouldn’t splat themselves all over the oven racks.  I was wrong.  

Which brings me to the lesson for today.  One of the biggest challenges I believe we face with Say Go Be Do’s is thinking that we know better, therefore we don’t have to follow our promptings.  In reality, the surest sign of our “knowledge” is that we really do obey.  Only by obedience to truth and promptings for good do we save ourselves from a lot of challenges – and messy ovens.  From now on, I choose to up my commitment to obedience and truth.  If I have a problem, I’m going to find the “commandments” or laws associated with that and obey them, because God’s laws always come first.  

Love you all!

Emily