Come Follow Me Study Helps: The Son of Man Shall Come

The Come Follow Me lesson didn't come with a lot of built in study helps this week.  I actually went on the church's website and had to do a little searching of my own to find some talks that went with it.  The funny thing is, I think having to look for stuff oftentimes leads you to find exactly what you need personally.

I'm feeling a little glum today, so you'll have to excuse me. If you've read some of my posts about scripture study, like 12 Tips for Better Scripture Study or 5 Ideas to Get You Started, you might get the impression that I'm really on top of it every week and barreling through these lessons exactly as planned out.  I wish that were true, but it isn't. I struggle with the same things as everyone else. I know what to do, I just don't do it all the time.

I know you know what I'm talking about

You come home from church on Sunday feeling all motivated and say "I need to do better." and you promise yourself that you're going to start first thing tomorrow. You make a plan to get your scripture study done before the kids get up, before you have to go to work, or just before you get bogged down in the rest of the day-to-day stuff you need to do. You make a promise that you're going to step it up in the prayer department.  Maybe you even schedule a trip to the temple. Whatever your plans are, you're all kinds of gung-ho.

Maybe you slacked a little on last week's lesson, so you figure you'll catch up on that lesson first and then start the new one. But then you look and realize you're actually a whole week behind.  So you promise to spend extra time every day THIS week trying to catch up. Except you don't.

And before you know it, you're letting go of a lot of things you should be doing. I'm right there with ya, sister. We're all on that struggle bus together.

The Savior Said, "Come Follow Me" but Why is it so hard?

The funny thing is, I actually don't believe it's that hard.  I just think letting things slip is easier. Life is busy and stressful, and it's easy to let yourself get sidetracked.  And sadly, it's a slippery slope. Once you start sliding it's hard to stop yourself and get traction to start working your way back up.  

When things go wrong...

If you're struggling with a trial, it gets even harder.  You start to concentrate on the giant disappointment and miss the tender mercies that have been there all along, but slid right by because you stopped looking.  I've certainly had those moments, and I'm sure you have too.

I've had one particular trial that just keeps slapping me down.  Every time I think I'm pulling out of it, it hits me again. It pounded on me pretty hard yesterday.  So today as I was looking for talks to go with the lesson, I stumbled right in to something I really needed.

God is in the details

I had a few realizations come to me:

• Finally starting this blog is a huge blessing in my life.  If no one even reads it, it helps me to write it.
• If I hadn't been committed to putting these Come Follow Me study helps together for others, I might not have done it at all, at least not this week Knowing that there are people that like what I'm doing and are waiting for this week's lesson helps pushed me to do what I needed to do for myself too.
• I would not have been stumbling around the church's website if the talks had already been laid out for me in the manual.  I found just what I needed because I had to do my own searching.

If you haven't been the the church's website, you probably haven't seen this story either, so I'm going to share it here.  I'm betting there's at least one other person that will love this as much as I did.

God is in the Details, Even (Especially) When They Change

If you're like me this week and struggling, it's time to just move in the right direction

There were so many talks to go with the subjects of this lesson that it was hard to decide which ones to choose!  I actually ended up preparing six of them, which is a lot. Don't feel like you need to read them all, just choose the ones that fit with what you need.

If you are behind and want the helps for past lessons, they are available on the linked posts below:

Related: Come Follow Me Study Helps: What Lack I Yet

Related: Come Follow Me Study Helps: 5 Ideas to Get You Started (or Keep You Moving)

 

 Have a great week of studying!