Hank Smith:                     00:03                   Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we’re in Genesis chapters 12 through 17 and a couple of chapters in Moses this week. And I have a story for you that fits this moment where Lot and Abram start to get into some strife, them and their households. There’s a little bit of contention happening. And Abram turns to Lot and says, hey, let’s work this out. I was in seminary a long time ago. I was a young seminary teacher. We were talking about siblings and relationships, how hard they are sometimes. This one student, she raised her hand and she said, “I get so frustrated. I get so mad because whenever it’s my brother’s turn to do the dishes, he goes to the bathroom and locks the door. I know that he’s going in there because he doesn’t wanna do the dishes and I try to stop him and he goes in and then he won’t come out until they’re, someone else does them.” And she’s like, “It just makes me so mad. I just get so angry.”

                                           01:04                   You know, some of the other students were saying, “Yeah, I hate that.” And they all, you know, I guess it happens frequently. Happens at our house. This young man raises his hand and I’ll be honest, John, I couldn’t say his full name. His name was, and I’m gonna just guess here. It was like Toafaulafa… It was this beautiful, long Polynesian name. But everyone just called him To because that was the first, that was the first sound of his name. Yeah. To. He was a big guy. He was a big To. To raises his hand and he says, “When my siblings don’t do their chores, I just do them for them.” And it was just silent in the room.

John Bytheway:               01:52                   What?

Hank Smith:                     01:53                   I think they were expecting, when my siblings don’t do their chores, right, I crack their skull. He just said, “I just usually just do them.” And I remember the student who’d asked the question initially, she said, “You just do them.” And he said, “Yeah, they’re just dishes.” And it was this moment of, “It’s not worth fighting over.”

John Bytheway:               02:13                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                     02:15                   “I’ll just do it.” Well, luckily his brother was in the class. Thumb, just kidding. His name was Ricky. I said, “Ricky, is that true? Does he just do the dishes?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “And so I give him candy.” I looked at To and To said, “Yeah, I like candy.” It was this moment of, “You know what? It’s not worth fighting over. It’s just dishes.” What happens here, John, as you know, is that Abram says to Lot, hey, instead of fighting, why don’t we just work this out? You do what you wanna do and I’ll take what you don’t want.

John Bytheway:               02:51                   Right.

Hank Smith:                     02:52                   You take what you want and I’ll just take the other side. You get that same feeling from Abram, don’t you? Like-

John Bytheway:               02:58                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                     02:59                   It’s not worth fighting over.

John Bytheway:               03:00                   And that’s when they separated.

Hank Smith:                     03:02                   Yeah. And Lot took the side he wanted, and Abram, Abram took the other. John, I think you’re that way, too. You’re just like, you know what? It’s not worth fighting over. I’m gonna pick my battles.

John Bytheway:               03:13                   I try to be. If you could just leave me To’s number, I want him to come do the dishes.

Hank Smith:                     03:19                   Yeah. Hey, big To. I wonder what he’s doing these days. I wonder if he’s still doing dishes. Hey, we hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We are with Dr. Jenae Nelson this week. She has been with us before in the Book of Mormon. She’s back. You’re gonna love what she does with this section and the light she sheds on it. Then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.