Use Your Brain

This morning, Lisa and I were discussing the logic of The Word of Wisdom.  More specifically why people would knowingly ingest a drug (caffeine) into their body for no good reason.  Especially knowing the consequences -- i.e. caffeine crash.  Yet, according to a scientist, caffeine is the number one abused drug in the world.  It makes no sense to a logical thinker like me.

Then later this morning I happened to look up the Sunday school lesson for today to read it.  And it happens to be on The Word of Wisdom.  (Lesson 22 in the Doctrine and Covenants gospel doctrine manual) In reading through the lesson I came across a really good quote by one of our past prophets, President Joseph Fielding Smith. The lesson mentioned that not everything that we should or should not partake of is mentioned in The Word of Wisdom revelation.  Here's what President Smith had to say:

“Such revelation is unnecessary. The Word of Wisdom is a basic law. It points the way and gives us ample instruction in regard to both food and drink. … If we sincerely follow what is written with the aid of the Spirit of the Lord, … we will know what is good and what is bad for the body” -- President Joseph Fielding Smith  (“Your Question: The Word of Wisdom,” Improvement Era, Feb. 1956, 78–79).

Basically Joseph Fielding Smith is saying, "Use your brain".  As with any commandment, we are given basic laws and it is up to us to use our brains and our agency to follow them properly.  Much like the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. We are given the basic law, and maybe a few specifics but not everything that we should or shouldn't do on the Sabbath is spelled out to us in detail.  The Lord gives us the law and lets us use our brains and our agency.  Most of the time simple logical will guide you in the right direction.

Now, more than ever science will tell you why certain substances are bad or good for your body.  So, there's really no excuse for not living the Lord's law of health in terms of not knowing why something is bad or good for you. To me, it's just following logic.

If you're using the excuse that caffeine or any other harmful substance is not specifically prohibited in The Word of Wisdom, then you are really just rationalizing.  And we all know that the only person fooled by rationalization is yourself.

Use your brain, use your agency to make good choices.  Don't try to rationalize away bad choices, because you're only fooling yourself.

That's my two cents.