The Inside Story

     So what am I talking about when I say "the inside story"?  May I share a scripture with you that sort of helps introduce what I am writing about this week: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." There is more to it, but I would like to just discuss this part a bit. Too often we are so eager to judge others that we forget to look "inside" ourselves! AND that is what the Lord tells us over and over to do: Get ourselves right before we judge, criticize, and condemn others. There are so many scriptures as well as conference talks that discuss this in so many ways. The big thing we have to remember is why we are on this earth in the first place. 

     And why are we here? Is it to run other people's lives? Is it to control others? Is it to force others to live the way we want them to? Sorry! No where in scriptures nor talks from our leaders does it say that. We are here upon this earth to learn for ourselves how we are to live so we can return to our Heavenly Father and be worthy to live with Him again. So  "the inside story" is what is inside of us! What we are doing! How we are thinking, feeling and acting! We are to look inside ourselves and fix us before we fix others as the scripture says: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye."  I do believe this is quite clear about what we are to do. Work on cleaning us up and getting us right before pointing out the problems in others.

     I have heard several conference talks as well that share this same idea. One I remember talked about people listening to conference and as they hear a talk about this or that they are nodding their heads and thinking, "My husband needs to listen to this one!" or "I hope my wife is hearing this!" or "Wow, do our neighbors need to hear this one!" THAT is NOT the point of conference talks: just like in studying scriptures, we are to do these looking for what we, ourselves, can learn, can improve, can overcome, etc., in our own lives. As we do so we become more and more the person God set us apart to be when we came to this earth. We begin to be more Christ-like and in this way we do have a very positive influence upon others and can help them without our pointing out their faults. They see our efforts to change into better people  and they can be influenced just by our examples to do the same in their own lives. What we do makes a greater impact on others than what we say. BUT if we are living according to what we say then we have a double impact!!

     I also remember the old saying, "Every time you point your finger at someone, you have three pointing back at you." 

     So to finish the scripture  about "looking inside" that we started with: "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."  So let's remember to fix us before we start pointing the finger and telling others to fix themselves!