Staying Warm

When I ran track a big thing that our coaches always made us aware of was the importance of staying warm. We were frequently told, "You warm up, and you need to stay warm in order to compete at your best ability and to avoid injury." We made sure put sweats on, do our warm up runs and then keep our sweats on so that we are always warm when the time to race came.
Yet again, we can take this and draw a great parallel to life! We are competing right now, and throughout our life we have "warmed up." We now need to keep our "sweats" on so we can be ready when the race comes. We can do this by going to church and keeping the commandments. If we don't keep these "sweats" on our warm up is good for nothing, and we are just as likely to get "injured" as we were before; such "injuries" may come in the form of sin.
Plain and simple, put your sweats on and don't get injured! Isn't it amazing how many similarities life has to sports?

Playbooks and strategies

As we approach any game in sports we practice and we establish a game plan; we establish a strategy. A game plan helps us prepare so we are ready for what the opposing team is going to give us when we play them. We prepare for the different aspects of our opponent's specific strategies so we do not get caught off guard when it really counts.
The scriptures contain our own game plan for this game of life. The adversary has strategies and he has techniques that he uses as he tries to defeat us. But if we use what we've been given in the words of prophets of old and even living day prophets we will not fall. We will be victorious!
This is the time that really counts! This is our chance! Let us prepare ourselves right now!