Recapturing testimony day by day

Faith and testimony is built day by day.  What are you doing each day to make sure your testimony stays vibrant?  I have been asking myself that a lot lately.

"...once obtained, a testimony needs to be kept vital and alive through continued obedience to the commandments of God and through daily prayer and scripture study."

Hopefully, you all picked up on this quote from President Monson, which I included in my previous post.  It applies to all of us.

Another one I love, from President Lee this time, is as follows (and I take this from the Harold B Lee Manual:

What can we do to strengthen our testimonies?

[The Master said to Peter,] “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22:31–32). Now, mind you, He is saying that to the chiefest of the Twelve. I am praying for you; now go out and get converted, and when you get converted, then go strengthen your brother. It means [we can become] unconverted just as well as we can become converted."

(And here comes the quote that I really like...) 

"Testimony is as elusive as a moonbeam; it’s as fragile as an orchid; you have to recapture it every morning of your life. You have to hold on by study, and by faith, and by prayer. If you allow yourself to be angry, if you allow yourself to get into the wrong kind of company, you listen to the wrong kind of stories, you are studying the wrong kind of subjects, you are engaging in sinful practices, there is nothing that will be more deadening as to take away the Spirit of the Lord from you until it will be as though you had walked from a lighted room when you go out of this building, as though you had gone out into a darkness.¹⁷

That which you possess today in testimony will not be yours tomorrow unless you do something about it. Your testimony is either going to increase or it is going to diminish, depending on you. Will you remember your responsibility, then? The Lord said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17).¹⁸

These are just some thoughts I have swirling around in my head today...the importance of always building and not becoming complacent about our testimonies.

I've been taking actions lately, small, baby steps, actually, to be a better builder of my own testimony.

One thing I started doing this week is taking about 10 minutes a day to index in the morning.  I figure it is just one more positive thing I can be doing with my limited time to turn my thoughts to good things, to build my testimony, and to bring more of the spirit into my day.

Since I was trying to find the easiest, quickest indexing projects, I ended up indexing records (muster rolls) of people who served in the American Revolutionary War, which I found really exciting.  Normally, in the past the people I have indexed were really strangers to me, but it seemed different somehow to connect with people who served such an important roll in our country's history.

Anyway, just another idea of ways we can all take an active roll in building our testimonies.  Have a great week!