A Blessing In Disguise

Opposition. Every athlete knows you need it to become stronger. Well, every dedicated athlete does. Without constant training, excercise, and activity, the muscles in the body will weaken and lose their use or effectiveness.
We lift weights, we go running, we get sore. In the end is that such a bad thing?



It is if you do it like this guy....

 Our soreness comes from micro tears in our muscles, seperations you could say, from one end of the muscle to the other. That's why we hurt. The muscles does not have the capability to heal itself with no outside help. It needs nourishing by proteins and other crucial nutirents that come from our bloodstream. Through these vital components and time, the torn, or seperated fibers in our muscles grow back together even stronger than before!!! This momentary seperation in the end is a benefit to our body! It hurts, but the end result is not bad, unless we let the seperation, tears, and pressure increase instead of taking time to heal. This happens when we continue to overwork ourselves instead of resting and healing. After too much continuous stress, or opposition, the seperation builds up until we "pull a muscle", leaving that muscle and other associated ligaments handicapped or useless for a while, making the recovery process even more painful and longer than was before necessary if we would have but given our body the proper time to recover. Surely when we are brought to that point we would choose to rest and recover than to continue straining our muscles even more, by then we see the negative effects of the muscle-fiber seperation.

Our relationship with God is just like our muscles! Let me elaborate. Like the muscle fibers before the workout, Adam was in the garden of Eden with God. God commanded Adam not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). There were two choices. Adam could stay in the garden and not progress, or Adam could eat the fruit, be cast out of the garden (or seperated from God), and be able to experience opposition. Adam chose to partake, transgressing or breaking a commandment of God, and was cast out. Like our muscles, this situation was only temporary. God provided the necessary growth and healing through our Savior Jesus Christ. If we rest and take time, through faith and repentance,we can "apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins" (Mosiah 4:2). As we allow the nourishing blood of Christ to bring the essential components for recovery to ourselves we can begin to rebuild and recover. We can become stronger through opposition by turning to Jesus Christ or we can overwork our muscles by continuing in sin and choosing to delay repentance. As an ancient-American prophet wrote:

For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors... I beseech of you that ye do not procrasinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherin there can be no labor performed (Alma 34:32-33)

Are we going to allow the Fall of Adam to be a bad thing, or just a temporary soreness in our life?

Are we going to be strengthened through the Lord Jesus Christ, or continue to be weakened, torn, and seperated by sin?

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death. according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself (2 Nephi 2:27)

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

OR