“Follow Him,” Friend, July 1991, inside front cover
Follow Him
(Adapted from a September 1989 General Women’s Meeting address. See Ensign, November 1989, pages 92–94.)
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies (Ps. 23:5).
Imagine that you are in a room full of banquet tables spread with many kinds of food. One table holds foods that taste good but aren’t very nutritious. Another has foods that could make you sick or even kill you. Another is filled with a rich variety of delicious foods that are well-balanced and nutritious. Which will you choose?
Life is a fabulous feast of experiences just waiting for you to choose and explore. The best feast is at the table of the Lord. What is on the Lord’s table? Love, good fun, uplifting music, peaceful prayer, scriptures, smiles, learning, and service to others. This is where eternal joy can be found.
Satan also has spread a table for us. Jealousy, disobedience, dishonesty, and immodesty are some of the things on his table. His food is deadly, but often appears inviting. If he came to you looking ugly and scary, you’d turn and run as fast as you could. So he has to trick you by making bad things seem good. He wants you to swallow lies like “Everybody does it,” “No one will know,” and “Just this once won’t hurt.” When you hear those phrases, turn and run away from danger.
When I was a girl, on summer mornings the first sound I heard through my open window as I was waking was the song of a meadowlark. I liked the call of the killdeer, the chirp of the chickadee, and the screech of the magpie. But the song of the meadowlark was especially beautiful to me, and I trained my ear to hear it amid other sounds.
We can train our spiritual senses the same way so that we can recognize our Heavenly Father’s will for us. We train our spiritual senses by doing good things. We are taught to “search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ” (Moro. 7:19).
Illustrated by Dick Brown