Goliath and morning glories

"Envy, greed, fear, laziness, doubt, vice, pride, lust, selfishness, discouragement—all spell Goliath." ~President Thomas S. Monson

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Recently my friend built one of these slings from some leather and twine--we spent a few minutes down at the creek learning to use it. I was incredibly impressed by the speed and strength with which the rock was released from this weapon. It took me by surprise.

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Similarly, I have been surprised by how eeringly sneaky bad habits come into our lives. They are infectious and parasitic. I compare them to the morning glory flower: at first glance when they appear in your garden or on your fence, you may think they are quite pretty, or at least harmless enough. Think again. These flowers are fast-growing, twining terrors that quickly take over wherever they are allowed to bloom. They suck all the nutrients out of the surrounding soil, so strong, independent, useful plants are choked out.

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So it is with bad habits. We may not even notice their presence in our lives...until they have quickly taken over and we wake up one day and realize that all those good, strong habits we've worked so long to build have been choked out by some, at the time, seemingly harmless habit we let into our lives.

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We must be Davids and stand up to our Goliaths. We must need weed out the morning glories from our lives and take back control. Just like David has his surprisingly powerful sling, we have a supply of powerful weapons to help us weed out the unhealthy things from our lives. President Monson reminds us that Courage, Effort, Humility, Prayer, Love of Duty are in our arsenal and may (and should) be used at our discretion. He has said "Victory will be ours. I like to think of David as the righteous lad who had the courage and the faith to face insurmountable odds when all others hesitated, and to redeem the name of Israel by facing the giant in his life."

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Best of luck to us all as we identify and conquer the Goliaths in our lives.