Just Sharing.

Someplace in my travels I encountered and adopted this saying, "Just sharing." I guess my wish is that it will take away any feeling that "preaching" is going on. We all have things we'd like to fix. We don't need anyone to point them out. We're all trying. Hopefully this phrase, "Just sharing," lets others know that my motive is not to preach but to share something that I've discovered, in the hope that maybe it will be of benefit to someone other than myself.

I have learned the value of writing down my thoughts as I am taught by the scriptures and the words of prophets. I learn things when I do. Perhaps heaven is looking over my shoulder and saying something like, "Well if he's going to write down what we tell him then maybe we'll keep telling him stuff." And not only that, when I write down my thoughts it helps me solidify what I'm learning. Joseph Smith taught that the things of God are of deep import and that it takes our best efforts and our deepest thinking to find them out (very rough paraphrase).

So I often write down my thoughts when I read/study the scriptures. And that process helps me connect with heaven. And maybe that's enough. But I'm a teacher and often I learn things with the intent to share them in the hopes they might be helpful to someone else. So I have lots of notes in my scriptures and lots of notes in document files I've created to go along with each of the standard works. The problem is that some of the most important things I've learned I have shared in classroom settings and not with those of my own family. I'm not sure how to fix that. The good news is that the Lord is teaching my family members things in their lives and in their own studies and in the classrooms they attend that probably are more profound than anything I could share. But still, the command is that parents are supposed to teach spiritually essential things to their children (D&C 68:25-28). But now my kids are adults and my "lecture mode" is long gone as far as my family is concerned. Thus this blog, "Just sharing." Maybe I can share here some of the things I have been taught by the Spirit and maybe some of it will be helpful to someone in my family.