Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another FollowHIM Favorites. This year, John and I are telling a single story that goes along with this week’s lesson. Unless we have multiple stories, then we might tell a bunch more. But John, this week we’re in 1 Nephi 16 through 22. And you told me that you had a pretty awesome story for chapter 17 right there in the beginning. So what is this story you’ve been telling me about?

John Bytheway: 00:23 It kind of goes along with the end of 1 Nephi 17:1. We’re wading through afflictions, very next sentence, “And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us.” It’s like, wait, did you just switch moods here or something? How do you do that? Years ago, I had a book called Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work. You know how many of those there are, right? Chicken Soup for the Left-Handed Aluminum Siding Installer’s Soul, right? There’s a million of them.

  00:49 But this one was the soul at work. There was this guy named Jerry. He was always happy, always in a good mood, and people would be bugged by that. “What is with you? Why are you always?” And he said, “Well, I just, every morning, remind myself I have a choice. I can have a good day or a bad day, so I choose to have a good day. If somebody yells at me, I can take it personal or I can put it in perspective, so I put it in perspective.” And, well, apparently he was a restaurant owner, and I didn’t know this, but to leave the back door where the deliveries come open, if you own a restaurant, is a really bad idea. Some robbers had been watching the place, held them up at gunpoint, three of them.

Hank Smith: 01:24 So they come in the back door?

John Bytheway: 01:25 Yeah, came in the back door. He was shaking so nervously trying to open the safe, that one of the robbers thought he was trying to make a move and shot him. He’s in the back of his restaurant. They shoot him, they run away, and he’s thinking, there’s nobody here, nobody’s coming. And this one thought, I choose to live. So he focuses on I choose to live. Somebody found him. He said the ambulance dudes were awesome. That we’re going to get you out of this. He said, “But when they wheeled me into the ER, I saw the looks on the faces of the doctors and nurses. And I saw them looking and shaking their heads, and they were like, ‘He’s barely conscious this guy isn’t going to make it.'” And he said, “It scared me. And they’re running around,” and he said a nurse was barking orders at everybody.

  02:12 And finally she looked down at him and yelled at him, “Sir, are you allergic to anything?” And he said, “Yes.” And he said the whole room stopped. They all stopped. And he said, “Bullets.” And then they all cracked up. He looked at the doctor and he said, “Doctor, I am choosing to live, so operate on me as if I am going to live.” Now, we all wish it were that easy. But I love that he knew I can choose the very best way to look at this right now, kind of like Nephi did there in 1 Nephi 17. Because Nephi can say, we’re wading through afflictions and isn’t this great? Pass the raw meat.

Hank Smith: 02:49 Right. Well, John, that’s fantastic. You are free to choose, right? You are free to choose. And he sees we’re hip deep, you’ve told me. We’re wading through afflictions.

John Bytheway: 03:00 Wading through affliction.

Hank Smith: 03:01 So great were the blessings of the Lord upon us. John, I love it. I love it. Come join us on our full podcast. It’s called FollowHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. We’re going to be with Dr. Tyler Griffin this week, and you’re going to love what he does with these chapters. And then come back next week, we’ll do another story on FollowHIM Favorites.