Some people seem to be blessed with a “green thumb.” My wife is like that, always cultivating and preserving a touch of natural color in the flower beds around our home. I fondly recall how she managed to coax persistent growth from a small bed of yellow pansies around the base of a tree in the front yard throughout the entire winter. Where the neighboring yards had been dutifully purged of all floral expression, here was this radiant bed of yellow pansies.
Gospel flower beds are like that. We plant and cultivate the seeds of repentance and faith in our lives, and we receive joy in verdant beginnings and early blossoms. But it takes commitment and valor to maintain the lasting bloom of the fruits of righteousness. When the winters of life come, and the winds of adversity and temptation whistle through our mortal landscape, it is only through our enduring faith, anchored in the “merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8), that we can hope to keep our spiritual garden alive and prospering. (Richard J. Allen)
“Remember and Perish Not”
King Benjamin’s parting statement is “remember, and perish not.” President Spencer W. Kimball stated, “When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? … ‘Remember’ is the word.” (“Circles of Exaltation,” [Address to religious educators, BYU, 28 June 1968], 8). President Harold B. Lee provides a three-step program for remembering our covenants and moving forward on the pathway prescribed by the Savior:
What must I do to be saved? As I pondered these words, I thought of three essentials that are necessary to inspire one to live a Christlike life—or, speaking more accurately in the language of the scriptures, to live more perfectly as the Master lived. The first essential I would name in order to qualify is: There must be awakened in the individual who would be taught or who would live perfectly an awareness of his needs… . The second essential for perfection that I would name is found in the conversation the Master had with Nicodemus … A man must be “born again” if he would reach perfection, in order to see or enter into the kingdom of God… . And then finally the third essential: to help the learner to know the gospel by living the gospel. Spiritual certainty that is necessary to salvation must be preceded by a maximum of individual effort. Grace, or the free gift of the Lord’s atoning power, must be preceded by personal striving. Repeating again what Nephi said, “By grace … we are saved, after all we can do.” (Stand Ye in Holy Places [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974], 208–213)