In the beginning

Let me start by giving you some background about me.  If you are planning on reading this blog you should know what you are getting into.   I am a husband and father of two wonderful girls.  I am a Database Developer by trade.   I am in my mid 30s, which I suppose could mean this blog is an attempt to deal with some sort of mid-life crisis, and by all definitions of the word I couldn't be more ordinary.  Now please don't misunderstand me.  I love ordinary.  I have a wonderful, fulfilling life.  It's just not what most would call exceptional. 

Now, with that out of the way allow me to describe my credentials.  It won't take long because I don't have any.  In case you missed it earlier,  I'm just an average guy. I don't have any formal writing experience.  I don't have any fancy degrees or certifications.  But what I do have are ideas.  I am constantly trying to figure out how things work and how I can improve myself.  I love to learn and am always striving to understand things better.  Simply knowing something is not enough for me.  I have to understand.  And so, this blog is my journey towards understanding and I'm happy to share that journey with you.

Finally, about the title of the blog.  I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I'm not a scholar nor am I one of the quote-unquote experts.  If you haven't caught on by now, I'm just a regular guy trying to get better each day.

As a member of the LDS faith, I believe strongly in the power of prayer.  I love the opportunity I have to talk to Heavenly Father each day.  For those of you who are not familiar with our beliefs, we pray a lot.  So much so that if you stick around long enough you'll start to hear some of the same phrases repeated over and over.   Our religion does not pray the same way as many others.  Because we believe prayer is a personal communication with God, we don't have prayers that are read from a book.  But as I said before the frequency with which we pray does lend itself to certain "favorite"phrases.  One of these pet phrases is the inspiration for this blog.

Part of our weekly worship service is called Sunday School.  We divide into classes primarily based on age and we study the scriptures together.  One person from the congregation has studied and is prepared to lead he discussion and we begin and end with, you guessed it, prayer.   Almost without fail the person offering the prayer will say the following:  "Bless us that we can take what we have learned and apply it in our daily lives."  That phrase strikes me as odd.  The concept makes sense to me.  Merely learning about something doesn't really help unless we can apply the the knowledge.  But my brain keeps getting stuck on the phrase "daily lives". 

Am I missing something?  Isn't Sunday a day also.  Why is it that we disconnect, even subconsciously,  what we do on Sunday with what we do the other 6 days.  I realize that Sunday is a special day of worship and rest from our labors, but it's not like we are completely different people on Sunday.  I'm not a secret agent.  The world at large already thinks we are a cult, and we're not helping things by perpetuating the idea that we have two lives:  a Sunday life and a Daily life.

That idea is at the core of this blog.  The idea that everything we do is connected to the gospel. Our jobs, our schooling, our interactions with others are all rooted in gospel principles.  About My Father's Business is my attempt to bridge that gap.  The Savior taught in parables because it is easier to understand a gospel principle when it is related to our experiences in the real world.  When he taught the parable of the talents, it was easy for the wealthy to understand the concept of investing money to make more money.  The more you invest, the more you get out.

And so, I came across a scripture in Luke Chapter 2.  The Savior was a boy of 12 years old and his parents, Joseph and Mary, found him teaching at the temple.  They were worried about him and when they told him they had been looking for him he answered "How is it that ye sought me?  wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"  His response resonated with me. This is the answer to those of us that struggle with applying gospel principles to everyday situations.  Our lives can become the parable.  I hope to draw on my own experiences and insights from the business world and from life in general to help us all better understand how we can be more involved in our Father's Business.  "For behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39)  How's that for a business plan?