Thursday, June 23, 2011

Have a "GOOD" Day

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The phrase, "Have a good day" should mean more to us than it usually does. Instead of simply meaning, "Have a day in which only good things happen to you," it should mean, "Have a day in which you only do good."

It is impossible to have such a day without consciously choosing goodness. The default position in this mortal world is badness. Therefore, if a person doesn’t consciously decide to be and do good, badness takes over. In other words, goodness must be worked for if we are to achieve it. No one is going to accidently arrive in the celestial kingdom.
 
The other day one of my daughters told me how she had found that if the night before she makes a list of all the things she is going to do the next day, she achieves so much more than if she just wakes up and does whatever comes to mind in each moment. She was amazed at how planning increased productivity.

It is the same way with goodness. When we plan ahead to be good, look for opportunities to be good, recognize that every moral choice will bring us closer to or farther away from good, surround ourselves with good in order to strengthen ourselves, we will be good. But if we don’t work at it, plan for it, and consciously determine that it is what we want, we will find ourselves swept away in the default.

“I want to be good,” is the first thing we should say in the morning, the last thing we should say at night, and everything in between should remind us that we want good. In that way we overcome the default and rise to new levels of joy and happiness.





2 comments:

DeRae said...

I had a institute teacher tell me that all things are created spiritually first as it says in Moses 3:5. He said that we should create our day spiritually, then our day will likely turn out better than if you didn't. I hope that makes sense.

Sherrie Mills Johnson said...

DeRae, I like that. Thanks for sharing.