Confession and Commitment

I recently had a conversation with a good friend about living in various ruts, whether that be a career rut, financial rut, or maybe even a social rut. Well, as I was able to identify to these the one that struck me the most was living in a spiritual rut. It's interesting to me how easy it is to get there. I've been reading my scriptures daily, yet still find that I'm not progressing as I would like. In thinking about it more, I found that that's really all I'm doing, just reading, I need to do more. So this weekend, I thought about ways to improve my personal study. I wanted something simple that would be easy to stick with. My parents have suggested for years how great Preach My Gospel is to use while studying either as a family or individually, so I decided that would be the tool to get me going. I've mentioned before what a great motivator Aaron is, well, I've realized he can be even when he's not trying. On Sunday, I told him that this was my plan, but I was still a little hesitant to actually put forth the effort. His response was that I wouldn't do it. So out of rebellion or to prove him wrong, I just completed Day 2 of my new study habits. I used to buy a new set of scriptures to study from every couple of years as a teenager, so I of course bought a new set at the end of my mission, but I've been holding on to them for 8 years without marking in them at all, b/c I wanted to come up with the perfect marking system. I gave up on that this go round and have finally colored some verses : ) I've also started a study journal, which so far is pretty simple, but has helped a lot. So I'm glad I realized I'm in a rut and rather than the thoughts at the gym of Aaron telling me I can do it, I have his words of "you won't do it," to get me started each day : )