Personal Religious Habits

"These personal religious habits--obedience, scripture study, prayer, and fasting--strengthened the sons of Mosiah. The lack of these same personal religious habits was a major reason that Laman and Lemuel were left vulnerable to the temptation to murmur and doubt." - Elder James B. Martino Of the Seventy, October 2015

I read Elder Martino’s talk this morning and really loved it.  He asked why Laman and Lemuel had had many of the same experiences as Nephi, but yet they doubted and Nephi did not.  He went through other scripture stores along with his own conversion story.  At the end he concluded with the paragraph above, which is the answer. I truly wonder how many people that have left the church or fell into inactivity were doing these things - being obedient to the commandments, studying the scripture and praying regularly along with regular fasting - personal religious habits - and still fell away from the church. Very few I would think. This idea of personal religious habits is a key to keeping our testimonies strong, holding on to your children and our marriages and remaining faithful and enduring to the end. Personal religious habits are the key to having the companionship of the Holy Ghost with us at all times, who testifies to us of truth and warns us of spiritual danger and becomes our guide to living our daily life.  Without him we make ourselves vulnerable to doubt and fear, which leads to “the dark side” as Yoda would say. I believe this is true and so commit again to daily scripture study and prayer, keeping the commandments and fasting, knowing that these things soften my heart and let me the promptings of the Holy Ghost.