Hey, hey, hey. Welcome, welcome. I am your host, Cindy Young, and this is Primarily Scripture, where we use Come Follow Me to help us learn how to study the scriptures more effectively on our own. Each week I create free no strings attached worksheets, and you can find those on my website, PrimarilyScripture.com. Between the worksheets and the podcast episodes, I give you study tips and tricks and teach you techniques that you can use to level up from reading the scriptures to studying them. So let's dive in! This week we are in Doctrine and Covenants sections 85 through 87, and if you look at the top of page two of my worksheets this week, you'll see the study tip that we're talking about today.

"the spirit can use the tiniest word or phrase to speak to your heart. So slow down and take time to ponder anything that stands out." Have you guys ever experienced this? Oh my goodness. If you haven't, then you should consider making this a goal of your scripture

noticing when the Spirit nudges you in a way that tells you that what you're reading is important. It is so fantastic! It's what makes scripture study one of my favorite things in the whole world! Now this feeling will be different for each person. You might just find your eyes drawn to a certain word, or you might have a really strong feeling, or it might even be a tiny little thought. Sometimes the tiny thought can even feel like a distraction. But if it's about what you're reading or about a gospel principle, then there's a really good chance that that is the spirit giving you a nudge in a certain direction. So that's why I'm telling you to slow down and ponder anything that stands out so that you can have that opportunity to recognize when the spirit nudges you. So what does the pondering part look like? Well, just like it's different when the spirit speaks to each of us and we experience that differently, the pondering part can be unique to us too. But we get to choose HOW we ponder. Now, remember that the point of pondering is to "dive deeper," which means taking a closer look at what you're studying. So imagine you're looking into a pool of water and you see something colorful at the bottom. That's really neat. But if you put your head into the pool, you'll be able to see it a little bit better. And in order to really understand what you're seeing, you would need to dive in and get as close as you can, and that way you can learn so much more about what you see. If you get close enough, you can feel it and see the details that were otherwise unclear. And the gospel is the same way. So if you notice something, take time to dive deeper and take a closer look at it. Now, you can do this lots of different ways. You can maybe find a conference talk or look up more scriptures that are about that topic. One of my favorite things to do is to write down all the random thoughts that I'm having, and let me tell you, it is amazing how many more thoughts I have when I'm doing that, when I'm writing them down. But another thing that you can do and the worksheets help you to work through this is to ponder by asking questions. So let's look at the worksheet and see what it says. We are in Doctrine and Covenantss 86, and it's explaining the parable that Jesus taught about the wheat and the tares. In the parable, there's a field and that represents the world. And then verse two of section 86 tells us that the sowers meaning the people who plant the seeds, right? Like the farmers, they are the apostles. And then in the story, an enemy comes and plants tares. And tares are a kind of weed, and they look really similar to wheat, like almost identical, but of course it's a weed. So the enemy is Satan, and the weeds he's planting are false teachings that might seem good, but they're contrary, meaning they go against God's teachings. So let's look at the end of verse six right here, and we'll read what it says.

he "soweth the tares," he plants the tares, "wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness." So this part of the verse stood out to me a little bit, and in the margins right here on the worksheet, I show you how I would dive deeper. I started with the question about what I'm reading and how it's relevant in the world today. So the question I wrote here is,"how is Satan trying to disrupt the testimonies of members of the church?" Now when I ask that question, I can think about it and give a really basic answer like, oh yeah, Satan is working so hard, and then move on. But that's not really diving deeper. That's recognizing it for what it is, but it's not a deep dive. So if we want to dive deeper, then we really need to explore the idea. And that means being more specific a lot of the time. So I left you room here on the worksheet to make a little list, and you might have to write small or do the actual writing on your journal page, but there is some room here. Now if I was exploring this idea, I might put things like, um, being mean to people who have different ideas. That's something that Satan wants us to do. Or teaching that Jesus doesn't care if we sin or not because he forgives everybody. And while it's true that Jesus forgives everybody, uh, he does care if we sin. So that is false doctrine that Satan is trying to spread. Let's see, what else could I write here? Um, Satan is trying to devalue the family by teaching that other things are more important. So these are all ideas that sound good at first to many, many people, but they are tricks of Satan to lead us away from God's teachings. Do you see how we kind of explored this thought? Well, now that we've explored some of these ideas and made a list of how Satan is attacking the world, let's dive even deeper and we'll take it a little bit closer to home and we'll ask, how is Satan trying to get to me? Me personally? Do you see how we're staying with the same idea, but we're just going more specific and more personal with our questions? Now, this isn't really something that we can fill out on this podcast because it's very personal. This is a chance for you to think about your own life and where you feel Satan is trying to get to you. And I encourage you to not make a long list here. We all have a million things that we can be better at, but one of Satan's favorite tools is making us think that we will never be good enough. And he loves long to-do lists because then he can whisper in your ear about how you'll never get it all done. So don't make a super long list. Just think of one or two things, and if you're not sure, then you can say a little prayer and the spirit can help you find one or two things to work on. Maybe you lose your temper easily, or maybe you struggle with being kind to a certain family member. Maybe you judge others too quickly, or you need to work on the things that you watch or listen to. Maybe Satan is distracting you during church, or he's whispering to you that you are not good enough. These are just a few examples and you'll need to ponder and identify Satan in your life because sadly, I promise you, he is there trying to get to you. But once you identify how Satan is trying to get you, then you can move to the next step of our deep dive, and that is to pray about what the Lord wants you to do to fight back against Satan. And this one should definitely be a matter of prayer because even though you might have a good idea of something you can do, the Lord also knows, and his ideas might surprise you, but his ideas are also the best. So this step might take some time. Maybe even a few days or weeks. But if you pray about it and listen for promptings and write down the ideas that come to you, then you will be using the principle of personal revelation and you'll get specific guidance for your own life. Now, when those thoughts come, if it's a very specific thought, like I should listen to a conference talk as I drive to school in the morning. Well, then you can just start doing that exact thing because that's a very specific thing to do. But sometimes you'll have more general ideas. It would be something like, "I should listen to conference talks more." And then it's up to you to decide what that is going to look like. So if your answer is more vague and open-ended, then you move to the next level of our deep dive, which is to make a specific plan. And your plan might be something like, I will read the scriptures for five minutes before I get out of bed, or I will write down three things I'm thankful for at the end of the day. What you decide to do is going to depend on what the Lord told you to work on, so it's going to be impossible for me to answer this question for you. You have to do the pondering yourself and take it to the Lord, and then you have to make your own plan. But remember, the Lord loves effort and he wants you to figure out a plan and he will help you as you work on it. So there you go. Do you see how we took the verse that describes Satan going after the members of the church and we did this deep dive? We pondered what it looks like in the world. And then we identified it in our own lives, and then we took it to the Lord, and you can make a plan to fight back and overcome Satan's influences. Now that verse isn't just about the parable, but it is actually changing your life and it's helping you to follow the Lord. And this is so exciting because this is where the power is in the scriptures. It isn't just in the words- even though words about the Lord and his gospel are powerful, they increase in power when you bring them to life by pondering them, looking closer, applying them to yourself, and using them to draw closer to the Lord. And you probably haven't realized it, but I have used this exact same pattern in a lot of the study activities on my worksheets. So you have done this already. I have just broken it down now for you to see. And so now you can take this tool and apply it to different places in the scriptures as you study on your own. In fact, if you look closely, you will find this same pattern on page one of this week's worksheets. One of the study ideas that I have on there follows this pattern. So anytime something stands out to you, take time to ponder it, and if the spirit nudges you to dive deeper, you can use this method to discover more gospel truths and find ways to connect with the Savior. I love it! So exciting! So I'm so excited to give this tool to you, and I hope you will use it as you study the gospel. Now remember, there are so, so, so many ways to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but no matter what other resources you use, your study should be primarily- which means mostly, most importantly- scripture. So go dive into those scriptures and see what you can find. I'm Cindy Young. I'll see you next time. Bye guys! Thanks for tuning into primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website, primarily scripture.com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time.