Today is Sunday and I had some thoughts about life and what we are here to do. I was setting in church today and saw a little baby, probably only a year old, trying to put her finger in an electrical outlet. Her mother would pull her away and say no, but a few minutes later the baby would be back at the outlet trying to put her finger in the socket again. Finally the mother in exasperation picked up the little baby and carried her away.

The thought came to mind that this is what our Heavenly Father does with us every day of our lives. We are tempted by some small thing, and the Holy Ghost tells us that it will cause us pain if we continue. So we stop, then the temptation comes again. and we again are warned and stop. This process, if we listen keeps us out of danger. But if we do not listen then eventually the Lord will have to let us suffer the consequence of our actions and we will put our finger in the electrical socket and get hurt.

This made me think, what are the long term effects of pushing boundaries with the Lord. Satan is so devious with how he gets us to do wrong. He will start with little things, that first drink, that first smoke, that first candy bar stolen from the store, that first ty joke. Then he tells us that wasn’t so bad, we aren’t hurting anyone.

Then it is the second time, and the third, pretty soon we are comfortable with what we are doing and he moves to the next step, a pack of smokes, money from the till, the pictures on the internet, the fifth of Vodka.

Before we know it we are doing things that we never thought we would do. Satan has, through he devious ways gotten us to come back to the electric socket for more. Until finally we are setting on the brink, of addiction to those things that we alway thought we could avoid.

The terrible thing about this is that by the time we reach this point we are no longer in control of our lives, Satan controls us.

Then it is a long hard climb back up out of the pits of despair that we have fallen into.

This is what Nephi was talking about when he exclaimed, “Oh the wicked man that I am”. It wasn’t that he was a wicked man per say but, he was weak in the flesh. “The natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the beginning” and we need to strive to “Put off the natural man”, and draw closer to the Lord.

No matter how large or small the sin, We need to always strive to listen to the Spirit and avoid the electrical outlet at all costs. Because the cost of failure to do this is pain to us, our families, and those loved ones around us.

As a Grandpa, I hope some of the wisdom I have gleaned through the years will help you all. Thus the rattling on of a Grumpy Grandpa.