Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello everyone. Welcome to followHIM, favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I am the host of a podcast called followHIM. I am here with my co-host, the incredible John Bytheway, and our guest this week, Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn. followHIM Favorites, John, Elizabeth is where we take our favorite part of the lesson, which is Doctrine and Covenants sections 111 through 114. You get to choose one favorite, something that stands out to you. So, John, why don’t you go first?

John Bytheway: 00:29 Oh, I will. I’m choosing section 111 verse 11, or otherwise known as 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. It’s just so fun to say that.

Hank Smith: 00:36 <laugh>

John Bytheway: 00:36 Yeah. But I love this verse, and it’s not just my favorite verse today, and not just one of my favorite verses in the Doctrine and Covenants. This is one of my favorite verses in the standard works. I love this verse. It has personally blessed my life. This is what it says: “Therefore, be ye as wise as serpents”. We all know how smart snakes are. Yeah, I’m not gonna comment on that. That’s another lesson. Because my daughter had a snake and it can’t do fractions, I asked. “…be as wise as serpents and yet without sin” and this part is just beautiful: “and I” the pronoun this is God, “I will order all things for your good, as fast as you’re able to receive them. Amen.” I love this verse. Life gives you a lot of lessons. You’ve got school, you’ve got math, you’ve got English, you’ve got science.

  01:25 But life gives you lessons too. And sometimes you’re like, can this just slow down? But the thing that this teaches me so beautifully is that not only does the Lord love us ,but we can trust him. And he is ordering things for our good, and he even knows when we are able to receive them. And this verse has blessed me so much. I said that before, but to be able to just trust God that he knows what he’s doing and he is helping me in my life. So I just love that verse. That is my followHIM favorite for today.

Hank Smith: 02:01 Yeah. Such a hopeful verse, right? Such a hopeful thing. I will, don’t worry. This is–President Hinkley…

John Bytheway: 02:07 I got this.

Hank Smith: 02:08 It’s all gonna work out. It’s all gonna work out. My followHIM favorite. We wanna give all the time to Elizabeth here since she’s our guest, but I’m gonna quickly do my followHIM favorite. It’s Doctrine and Covenants 112 verse 10. It’s a famous one that you’ve probably heard before. “Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answers to thy prayers.” Give the answer to thy prayers. And, I remember once someone telling me that the first step in any progress, any progress you wanna make at all is humility. Understanding that you need to make progress and that there are things you don’t know. And it’s okay to be teachable. So, if anybody listening is thinking, man, I just really am not moving forward the way I want to, I’m not making progress, then maybe it’s time to gauge our humility and say, am I asking the Lord for help?

  02:57 Am I asking my parents for help? Am I asking my leaders for help? Right? Am I humble? Am I teachable? To me, John, if I looked up humility in the dictionary, I think your picture would be there. I just feel like, and you too, Dr. Kuehn. I just feel like you too are both so humble, and I have a lot to learn from you. But I wanna be humble, right? Because humility is the choice to soften your heart and be teachable. So that’s my followHIM favorite.

John Bytheway: 03:25 You know, Hank, when you picture that verse in your mind, it’s like the Lord wants to hold my hand. I mean, that’s what it means to lead somebody by the hand. Wow. That’s beautiful.

Hank Smith: 03:36 Yeah. Follow me. All right. Follow. Come with me. I’ll take you places. All right, Dr. Kuehn, your turn. You take it over.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 03:47 So my verse is section 112, verse 12. “And pray for thy brethren of the Twelve. Admonish them sharply for my name’s sake, and let them be admonished for all their sins, and be ye faithful before me unto my name.” And I really love the beginning of this one. And pray for thy brethren. So many times, in callings in the church, I think, you know, it requires different levels of investment, different levels of growth. And we can never go wrong praying for those that we’re serving, those that we’re serving with. And we really see this in this section with Thomas B. Marsh, who verse after verse is diligently praying for his brethren, but is also being admonished to treat them equally, and to correct them when it’s needed. And to find a balance with that correction and to encourage them to be faithful. So, I think there are both kind of historical anchors here that are really important. So much of this section is calling the Twelve back into line saying, Joseph is your prophet, follow Him, but also I think, directly applicable to our lives in terms of the guidance we need from the Lord and the ways that we can achieve unity and good feelings.

Hank Smith: 05:01 Hmm. Elizabeth, that is, I was thinking as you were saying that like, it’s hard to fight with someone or really dislike someone you’re praying for.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 05:10 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 05:12 If you’re praying for them by name, there’s a softening that comes in that relationship.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 05:18 Absolutely.

Hank Smith: 05:20 Yeah. Well, we hope that all of you listening or watching followHIM favorites, will join us on our longer podcast called followHIM. We have Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn with us for a couple of hours, and you’re not gonna wanna miss it. So please come on over, wherever you get your podcasts, find followHIM. But if not, that’s okay. Come back next week for another followHIM Favorites.