Why Do You Study Your Scriptures?

This was the FHE theme last week that my 9, almost 10 year old daughter presented to us. After we read some scriptures pertinent to the subject, she had us all take 10 minutes to brainstorm our own personal reasons. This was enlightening to me. Here are some of the responses my family came up with:

My 3 year old SUNBEAM:
So we can learn about Jesus and Heavenly Father
To get Aubree's Cake (Yes, I used bribery a few weeks ago and the little one remembered, of course!
To hear stories and .... tricks? I don't know where that one came from!?
Learn ABC's
Learn 123's
To be closer to Heavenly Father
Prophets told us to. (To be obedient)


The rest of the family's responses:
To receive answers to our questions and prayers.
To bring our family closer.
To fell the Holy Ghost.
To learn lessons.
Adam and Eve
Keep the Commandments.
Receive instruction.
Learn from others mistakes.
Get comfort.
To learn history.
Inspirations to keep journals.
Know how to apply them in our daily lives.
Daily peace.
Learn how to get back to Heavenly Father.
Be a good missionary.

It was good inspiration to help keep us going in our daily goal of family scripture study. I will admit it has been one of the harder things for me to do this year. The main reason is probably because being 37 weeks pregnant, I have been experiencing some surges, especially at night. Plus, I have to wake up to go to the bathroom at least 4 times a night. I guess the Lord is prepping me for night time feedings with a newborn. It makes it hard to wake up in the morning if you haven't slept well at night.

Nevertheless, I have to admit there have been some undeniable blessings since we have begun this endeavor. We have done this on and off since we became a family. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, we have never been all too consistent. Our best was about a year in a row. Some of those mentioned blessings have been (of course) the above listed, but also that I can ponder on the things we read throughout the day. We have also noticed that our kids have less contention. My husband has noted that his whole day just feels better when we have done it. We missed one time and he had a horrible day. I recommend listening to Gene R. Cook's CD on Family Scripture study. It is so inspirational. We listened to it as a a family while peeling wallpaper from the boys' room one day. It was where we took our start. We are also going to start reading 15 minutes from a Classic Book after our scripture study so that dad gets to hear one with us. We are going to begin with "Little Britches" by Ralph Moody. We have read that once before, but only about half way. We will start where we left off.