stir.

...for Satan did stir them up to do iniquity continually; yea he did go about spreading rumors and contentions upon all the face of the land, that he might harden the hearts of the people against that which was good and against that which should come. (Helaman 16:22)

When I read this the word "stir" really caught my attention.

I absolutely love chocolate chip cookies and have a lot of pride in the Kasteler family recipe. When I stir the ingredients together to make the cookie dough I do not put everything in at once. I add the ingredients gradually.

Then I gradually stir them together. The more I stir, the more mixed up they get. The mixture gets to the point where it is hard for me to distinguish between
      butter and egg,
              sugar and flour,
                      vanilla and brown sugar.

When Satan is stirring us up to do iniquity he doesn't ever tell you to break all of the commandments at once. He starts where you are and gradually puts in little ingredients.

In a mixture of good morals, and a testimony of Jesus Christ, Satan puts in a tablespoon of laziness. Then he adds a dash of "politically correct". Then he stirs up those ingredients for a little while. When you read the scriptures, God puts some peace and direction into your life. Satan then pours in a cup of doubt and some "everyone else is doing it". Then he continues to stir so gradually that you hardly even notice the ingredients he put in. Meanwhile, throughout your trials God teaches you to be more patient and loving with those around you and those ingredients are added. Then Satan throws in my personal favorite, a few teaspoons of procrastination.

When Satan starts stirring again things get more and more confused and mixed together. It is hard to distinguish between
          peace and laziness,          
                     patience and procrastination,                    
                                 good morals and "politically correct".

I see two problems here. First, Satan is putting things in my cookies that I do not want in there. Second, he is stirring up all those ingredients so it is next to impossible to sift out the bad ones.

I say "next to impossible" because there is a glimmer of hope.

In elementary school and up through high school I learned the basics about physical and chemical changes. I learned that when I am stirring ingredients together to make cookie dough, a physical change is happening. A physical change CAN be undone. Somehow, someway, I can separate the ingredients. But once I plop the dough on a cookie sheet and stick it in a 325 degree oven for 12-15 minutes, it goes through chemical change. Once this chemical change happens, it CANNOT be undone. There is no way to separate those ingredients ever again.

Satan has really corrupted my cookie dough. Before I put it in the oven I need to remove those bad ingredients. I can't let the physical change of stirring them together become a chemical change that cannot be undone.

So how can we do it?

I am by no means a chemist, and I don't know exactly how physical changes can be undone to separate the ingredients in cookie dough. But I do know that when Satan is stirring us up to do iniquity the way to separate the ingredients and take out the bad ones is called the Atonement. Jesus Christ suffered for all of our sins, imperfections, and impurities in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then he died on the cross and rose again three days later.

Jesus Christ made it possible for us to take out the bad ingredients that Satan puts into our cookie dough.

I'm not a chemist. I don't completely understand what needs to happen to reverse a physical change. And I don't completely understand exactly how the Atonement works either.

But I know that it does work.

Through the grace of Jesus Christ we can not only separate all of the good and bad ingredients, but we can completely eliminate the bad ones. I know that cleansing and purifying happens through living the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we have faith in Him, ask Him for forgiveness, be baptized for the remission of sins, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end, we can gradually eliminate all of the bad ingredients in our lives. We can become the people that we are meant to become.

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.
(Moroni 10:32-33)