followHIM - Weed Your Brain, Grow Your Testimony • followHIM Favorites • July 22-28 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

How do you grow a testimony?English: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30FRPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30ES YOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/1pjUvMvr0Y4ALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week's lesson. John, we are in Alma 32 through 35. Faith, the seed growing into a tree. When I was a new seminary teacher, a wonderful talk was published called Weed Your Brain, Grow Your Testimony by John, by the way, still one of my favorite talks of all time. And that's not just because we're friends now. I loved that talk. I heard it given live. I bought the CD. I still think you can get it at desertbook.com. It really is a life-changing talk, John. So what stories did you tell there? Oh my goodness. There are so many, but let me just tell you, I bought a house in South Provo. I couldn't seem to find a wife. I thought maybe if I get a mortgage, I'll be more attractive. And I wasn't, but now I had a mortgage.

I moved to this house and there's this backyard and the weeds are about five feet tall. I went to Ernst Home Center. That's going back. I bought some garden tools and I thought this is going to take me a couple hours. Took me a couple of weeks to get those weeds out because they were deep and, oh my goodness, next door, my neighbors had a Norwegian elk hound. Don't know why I remember that. He would not stop barking all day long. I'm out there weeding. I'm trying everything. I'm trying to scare him, trying to be nice to him. And finally, I bought some dog biscuits and I chucked one over the fence and he was quiet for like three minutes. Then so ungrateful, came right back, started barking his head off at me. I thought, do you ever get hoarse? Do you ever lose your voice? And then I thought, hey, and I crumpled up the dog biscuits

into a fine powder and I chucked it over the fence and that kept him busy for 20 minutes. He's sniffing around looking for pieces. It was a great moment in my life when I thought I am smarter than a dog, but I finally got all those weeds out. And now Hank, what's going to happen? All those weeds are out. If I just do nothing, what's going to happen? Oh, absolutely. It won't take long. They'll come right back again. And I'll tell you, I feel like I learned more lessons thinking about these agricultural stories and parables in the scriptures than I would have just reading them over and over again. And so these lessons are going to sound really, duh, really elementary, but let me give you some of them I learned from that.

Number one, if you want good things in your garden or in your life, you have to put them there. After I cleared that dirt, how come tomatoes and cucumbers didn't come and put themselves in a line? They don't. That's number one. You want good things in your garden, in your heartland. We call it for this chapter because your heart is compared to soil

and you're going to plant the word in your heart. You want the good stuff. You got to put it there. Number two, bad stuff will come out of nowhere uninvited. Do a magic trick for your friends. Just clear some dirt and say in the spring, watch this dandelion. Boom. And it'll come. I don't know how they know where there's available dirt. They come out of nowhere. They are omnipresent.

Hank, I did some research. Somebody brought dandelions over from Europe. They were imported. Oh, what were you thinking? Okay. There's a special place in outer darkness reserved for these folks. Dandelion bringer. Yeah.

I think it was for greens to make salads or something. But you know how they grow that sphere with the seeds that- Like with the little parachute people that, yeah. Yes. You're trying to plant your grass. You see your kids, dad, look. And you're running from the other side. And they blow and all those little parachutes of destruction go out all over your grass.

The bad stuff will come out of nowhere, uninvited. And lastly, the life will be a constant war on weeds. It's just the way it is. They keep coming. You want the good stuff? And this is what Alma teaches us because he doesn't just say, plant the word. He says, now you have to give it time to grow roots. And I call this fertilizer FDP in verse 41, faith, diligence, and patience. Did you put FDP on it? And then it will take root. Verse 42, because of your diligence, faith, and patience, now it's DFP, then you can feast until you are filled and hunger not, neither shall you thirst.

There's a lot of good agriculture metaphors for our hearts. Put the good stuff in there and put FDP in it and feast off the tree of life. Now you know. If you got a dog, dog biscuits, crumple them up, chuck them over the fence. Yeah. They'll be busy for days. That was fantastic. What's the one you always tie to this? The parable of the sower. Jesus says the seed can't grow in the weeds. Right. It's first it's soil and then Alma's seed and then Alma's season, because you've got to prepare it so that it can grow roots.

You'll see the word roots all over in here. And then you get to enjoy the supper. So soil, seed, season, supper. Now, I've always been scared of that weedy soil in the Savior's parables. I'm too busy. I got too many other things going on. I can't give time to my testimony. And it's good soil. It's good enough because weeds are growing in it. You've just got the

wrong stuff in there. You know how there's 613 commandments in the Old Testament? They used to count them. This is one of those. Deuteronomy 22.9. Listen for the spiritual lesson. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with diverse seeds, lest the fruit of thy seed which thou has sown and the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled. Why would you plant good things and bad things in your heart at the same time? Yeah, the good stuff just can't grow. It just can't grow. You've got to weed your life.

Often, John, I find out there's an app taking too much of my time. I should be doing better things. So I delete the app. And how many times have I re-downloaded that app? I went and found the weed and replanted it in my garden. And put FTP on it. Yeah. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry I got rid of you. I really think you should belong here. Oh, how terrible. John, thank you for that. We hope you'll join us on our full podcast. It's called Follow Him. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We are with Dr. S. Michael Wilcox this week. He waxes eloquent as he does every time he is on our podcast. And then come back next week. We will have another Follow him favorite.