Stop Hurting Yourself!

This morning Grant thought it was hilarious to hit himself in the head with his sippy cup. He would laugh and then do it again harder. It started hurting him, but he wasn't about to stop this fun game, so he would cry and then do it again. I would tell him to stop hitting himself, but he would just look at me like it was my fault he was hurting, and then would do it again. It got to the point that it was as if he really couldn't stop himself from bashing his head with the cup, so I had to intervene. This experience reminded me of something I read in Isaiah 1 a few days ago:

 4 Ah ^asinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, ^bchildren that are ^ccorrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto ^danger, they are gone away backward.

  5 ¶ Why should ye be ^astricken any more? ye will ^brevolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart ^cfaint.

  6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been ^aclosed, neither bound up, neither ^bmollified with ointment. 

We forget and forsake Jesus Christ, and He asks, "Why will you keep allowing yourself to be hit? If you would just turn to Me, I would heal you!" That same idea is shared by the Savior to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 9:13:

Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may ^cheal you?

It is childish that we keep hurting ourselves (or at least allowing ourselves to be hurt), and all the while there is peace, comfort, and healing in store if we would only return to the Savior. Even worse than that is when we blame God for not taking away the pain! That gives us an excuse to not have to change or repent, because it wasn't actually our fault, right? The Nephites displayed this in Mormon 2:13:

But behold this my joy was vain, for their ^asorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the ^bsorrowing of the ^cdamned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take ^dhappiness in sin.  

Sometimes, we spiritually get to the point that we know we are out of control. We know we are hurting ourselves, but we don't know how to fix it. Luckily, the Savior does, and He will be there to help us as soon as we ask for His help.