A Blessing

When I was in the MTC I remember having a blessing in which the elder giving me the blessing told me to know who was on "my side". It is sometimes strange when in a blessing you are told something that you haven't talked to anyone about specifically. That was much the case in this blessing. For some reason that memory just crawled back into my consciousness.

I guess at the time I hadn't grown out of the "everyone is against me" mode of thinking. I used to think that unless shown otherwise I generally couldn't trust other people to be on my side, or understand me. It was an unbalanced way to look at life, but one I had used in order to deal with the troubles and challenges I had been facing up to that point. (It is hard to admit this about myself, I promise!)

Sometimes I think that mindset is a great tool for the adversary to use against us, especially to convince us that the one we need to be most upset with is those closest to us. The people that do love and care about us the most. The people that have no mal-intent. If he can convince us that those people aren't on our side and that we are all alone, then surely we will be much easier to lead away.

It is hard when you are on the other side of that situation because you don't know why you are being unjustly dealt with. You might even react with a similar attitude. Double score for satan, right?

What can we do when we find our self in this situation? Pray for help, obviously. Maybe challenge your thinking...is this person really out to get me? Or am I just seeing this the wrong way? Or ask yourself- how does Christ see this person?

I hope and pray that you will all be blessed with the ability to know who is truly "on your side" at all times in your lives.