When I graduated from BYU, I cleaned out all of my old notebooks from the previous four years and set them in a pile.
I am a super practical person— not really sentimental.
I prefer taking notes by hand, so I’d get a new notebook each semester and fill it up with notes from all my general, music, education, or religion classes.
So now I was left with 8 giant worn-down notebooks, filled with pages and pages of handwritten notes from dozens of classes.
What was I going to do with them?
I don’t have MUCH sentimentality, but I still had a hard time thinking about just throwing these notebooks away.
But, my practicality kicked in: despite the great information I gained in my education classes, would I ever actually go back to my handwritten notes to find information?
No. I would honestly just google it, or ask another colleague.
As I piled them into a garbage bag that immediately started to rip under the weight, my mind went to one thing I might miss:
Notes from my religion classes.
Because I had FANTASTIC religion professors, and the insights they had shared into the scriptures couldn’t just be searched or duplicated by others.
One of my biggest regrets to this day is that I didn’t reach in and tear out the notes from my religion classes about the Book of Mormon, the temple, prophets, New Testament…
I threw them all away.
When Esau was asked to sell his birthright, he responded:
“Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?” (Genesis 25:32)
He was caught up in the practicality of the birthright— I mean, what good would it be if he was dead?!
Are we caught up in the practicality of our blessings and our gifts and our knowledge that we willingly give them up?
It’s not practical to get to church at that time. Not practical to attend the temple. Not practical to minister to those people. Not practical to read scriptures.
But the real blessings come from what we are sometimes willing to give up in order to keep what we have.
To be hungry just a little bit longer, so that we aren’t tempted to give up great blessings in the future for some temporary comfort.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
