Spirit of Contention

3 Nephi 11:29 - "For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another."

I can be pretty stubborn when I want to be but that is the key, I have to want to be, or...I find that when I dwell on an issue for a while I can get a little upset real easy. But I have been working on that weakness for a little while now, however, I think I still need to work on this.

Recently, we got a new Bishop, who I like a lot. He is a very good man and comes from an awesome family. But recently I found we had a difference of opinion in something concerning my son. Over the past two years I have been a volunteer at the Family History Library on the same nights my son has his youth meeting. Our routine has been that he would wait for me to pick him up when I was done but our new Bishop didn't like that he would be staying alone at the church so he took him home that night.

At first it bothered me then I let it fester until I was angry. I allowed myself to get caught up in the spirit of contention. It began to bother me so much that I couldn't sleep well that night. I had to pray for help to shake the feelings of anger. I didn't like the way I felt, nevertheless I wanted to be right about this.

The next morning I had calmed down and could see the error of my ways. I realized that he knew I was a single mom trying to serve the Lord through family history so he was probably doing something nice for me by taking my son home. I appreciate his kindness and had to ask for forgiveness for my thoughts and actions.

We can ruin relationships with people when  we allow things to fester inside of us. When we feel anger towards another person we are allowing Satan to influence our emotions even more. Righteous women have to work hard to avoid anger because we cannot be an example of our Savior Jesus Christ if we cause others to feel anger towards us. Self control of our angers and frustrations is a good tool to avoid Satan's promptings.

I have prayed for self control for certain things in my life, this certainly needs to be one of those things. The spirit of contention has ruined many people's lives. But we have a good example in Jesus Christ and we, as righteous women, should all be striving to follow in His footsteps. We can't love our brother if we feel the spirit of contention in our lives.