for the afternoon crowd

Ooooh, those trials of faith will really get you to stop and think, won't they? Not a day goes by when I don't feel like my faith is getting tested a little bit more than it was the day before. Heavenly Father must expect some great things from me, and that's why he's testing me. I can only hope I'm doing a good job. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

I was talking to a friend recently about application. Not application of foundation (different blog, move on, people, move on) (but if you want to apply your foundation correctly go with a Beauty Blender, ok bye).

We were talking about "gospel blogs" and the like and she told me she'd been looking for something with a little bit more substance. All of us probably read Pinterest quotes all the time and post them on our Instagram, we post a video and hashtag it with the latest #sharegoodness derivative, we gush on our Facebook page about how grateful we are, but I don't know if we talk enough about application.

David O. McKay articulated it best:

"Faith in God cannot of course be other than personal. It must be yours; it must be mine; and, to be effective, must spring from the mind and heart. What we need today is faith in the living Christ, which is more than a mere feeling, but a power that moves us to action—a faith that will put purpose into life and courage into the heart. We need the gospel of application." (source)

I know that for myself, the gospel makes a lot more sense to me when I use it. Well duh. Of course it does. If you never drove your car and just stared at it sitting in your driveway, you'd never learn how to drive or how to be around other drivers or understand traffic laws. You'd just have a potential way to get around. But of course it wouldn't do you any good. The gospel is the same way. The only way I can make the gospel work for me is when I use it every day. I'm still figuring out what that means for me, but everyone has personal things they're working on. If you want a great talk about that, I would check out Elder Lawrence's "What Lack I Yet?" That was a wonderful talk about application.

I'm not sure why this is on my mind right now, but here it is. It's not very elegant or complicated, but that's the gospel. It's simple. Next time you post on social media about #sharinggoodness, try asking yourself what you can do to apply what you've just shared. That's what I'm trying.