The Natural Man...

Mosiah 3:19 states, "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

This scripture is pretty clear. The natural man is an enemy to God. So let's just not be the natural man, right? 

If only it was that easy! 

Every person struggles with the natural man and I would even say that every person struggles with their own version of the natural man. Everybody has different struggles. 

I struggle a lot with keeping my focus on goodly things. For instance, I love TV. And often times the shows that I enjoy don't invite the Spirit and my husband has to remind me that "We seek after goodly things.."

Where I struggle, another will flourish. Maybe watching TV isn't something that you struggle with, but I am sure you struggle with something of the natural man. 

Everybody will also have different strategies to "put off the natural man." For me, I really depend on my husband and my daughter to keep me in check. Before I watch a TV show or movie, I ask myself if my husband would watch it or if I would be comfortable watching it with my daughter. Another thing I have started to do is to ask myself, "Would I be comfortable if the Savior sat down and watched this with me?"

My husband and I have a quote on our wall that says: 

"Christ is the head of this house, An unseen guest at every meal and a silent listener to every conversation."

I think it is really important to remember that and by doing things that keep the Savior present in our homes, we can shirk off the natural man.