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TheDiscipleMD

A few years back, when we lived in Maryland,  my sister and her husband were visiting from out of town. They, along with my wife and I, strolled the streets of Philadelphia on a walking tour of the city. I’m rarely sick, but that day I was overcome with a violent stomach attack that left me vomiting on the historic streets of our founding fathers. In fact, I was vomiting intermittently all day and not just on the historic cobblestone streets, the car being my favorite place of deposit! I don’t know if it ruined the day for everyone else, but for me the walking tour left something to be desired.

I recovered rather quickly the next day and it appears that I might have been a victim of “food poisoning”, this from a meal that my wife and I enjoyed at my favorite restaurant the night before. After I had recovered, I told my wife how interesting it is that the body detects such a “poison” and immediately begins to discharge the offensive material. I’m grateful that my body is made that way because it can protect me from foods and chemicals that will hurt or destroy my health.

How about our spiritual health? Our spiritual bodies do not “automatically” discharge offensive materials that are presented to us. The Lord provided an alarm called the Holy Ghost to warn us when “poisonous” materials try to enter but no automatic system is in place forcing us to reject it. We have agency that allows us to make the decision as to what to take into our spiritual bodies. We must be the caretaker of our souls. Like eating food, we voluntarily make decisions as to what we will put into our spiritual bodies. Moroni tells us, “the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ” (Moro. 7:16).

It is very apparent that we will take things into our souls from time to time that we shouldn’t. Unlike my experience in Philadelphia, where my body forced me to rid itself of offensive material, the Lord provided us with the agency to rid ourselves of  poisonous spiritual  things.  It’s called daily repentance. It serves to “regurgitate” unwanted things out of our souls. I found out it wasn’t pleasant to “regurgitate” on the streets of Philadelphia and it has never been fun to “regurgitate” sins of the soul. But its outcome is desirable! A clean bill of health is needed to do the work of the Lord. We will better enjoy the ‘tour’ of life if we are free from “poisonous” spiritual things!