#Good day, Hivers! It’s me again,

. I’ll be sharing about our spontaneous gathering that took place right after our religious meeting. So, shall we begin?
. What a beautiful and practical topic, right? In today’s world, many people tend to have short tempers, which can make it difficult to forgive one another and been a true disciple of the savior. But God is righteous in all His ways. He helps us maintain a clean conscience and continue showing love for one another by providing us with sound, Bible-based guidance to follow.

Somewhat hidden in the Old Testament book of Haggai is a description of a group of people who could have used Elder Holland’s counsel. They got it wrong by not placing Christ at the center of their lives and their service. Haggai paints some thought-provoking word pictures as he reprimands these people for staying in their comfortable houses instead of building the Lord’s temple:

“Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?
“Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
“Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.”
Don’t you love those descriptions of the futility of prioritizing things of no eternal consequence above the things of God?
In a recent sacrament meeting I attended, a returned missionary quoted a father who summed up this idea perfectly when he said to his children, “What we need here is less Wi-Fi and more Nephi!”
Having lived in West Africa for five years, I saw plenty of examples of people prioritizing the gospel naturally and unashamedly. One such example is the name of a tire repair and wheel balancing business in Ghana. The owner has named it “Thy Will Alignment.”
We can feel enduring joy when our Savior and His gospel become the framework around which we build our lives. However, it’s so easy for that framework to become, instead, the things of the world, where the gospel sits as an optional extra or as simply attending church for two hours on Sundays. When this is the case, it is tantamount to putting our wages into “a bag with holes.”
Haggai is telling us to be committed—to be, as we say in Australia, “fair dinkum” about living the gospel. People are fair dinkum when they are what they say they are.
I learned a little about being fair dinkum and being committed by playing rugby. I learned that when I played my hardest, when I gave my all, my enjoyment of the game was greatest.