The Wind Beneath Our Faith

Today I spent the day studying for upcoming finals and preparing the Sunday School lesson.

The title is King Solomon: Man of Wisdom, Man of Foolishness. I read through all the material

(it was quite long) then I decided to take a break and I went to YouTube and searched for videos of Star Trek Voyager. I had already watched some episodes earlier this week, and I was looking for some different ones to watch. I stumbled upon The Void. In this episode, the starship Voyager gets pulled into this strange place that is completely devoid of stars and Voyager immediately attacked by a couple of other ships. The captain is confused and wonders why they are attacking her ship. It turns out Voyager has been pulled into a void and there is no way of escaping so everyone that is already there will steal from each other in order to survive. The captain's set of moral values is ultimately what she sticks with, no matter how difficult or what the consequence and because of her choice everything worked out.

I was very moved by the story (my summary does not do it justice)and the idea, and while I was watching the episode and thinking about choice and consequence (and how to apply that to my lesson), I was reminded of another T.V. show episode that had a very powerful message that moved me profoundly.

In 2003 I went to Montana to clean a Smith's grocery store. I had been there for almost an entire week, and the only thing to do during the day was watch T.V. and play Dreamcast in the hotel room and my favorite show to watch was 7th Heaven. The only thing I remember about this episode was the video below, but I was so moved by it and I have never forgotten the message or how it made me feel.

While the reverend doesn't talk about Solomon, what he said goes perfect with what I studied for the lesson: Solomon had been so greatly blessed and and so have all of us. We have all received wonderful spiritual gifts and we have to put them to good use. Not once. Not twice. Not three times. We have to always take the blessings we have received and use them for the benefit of others, no matter how great or insignificant we think our talents are. We have them for a reason, and as we can learn from King Solomon, how we use our talents and blessings will determine what we ultimately will become.

Solomon was not a bad person. I mean, he built the first Temple and he used the best of the best. He spared nothing for the Lord. He simply made mistakes after that (like we all do) and we have to take the good and the bad so that we can learn what it is we need to do and/or avoid.