Episodios

  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 24–33 – Jennifer Roach Lees

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 24–33 – Jennifer Roach Lees
    Mar 3 2026

    Jennifer Roach Lees holds a Master in Divinity as well as a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She is a licensed mental health therapist and lives in Utah.

    The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 24–33 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.
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    31 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 24–33 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 24–33 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson
    Mar 2 2026
    Feeling Alone? Trust Him. by Autumn Dickson The Old Testament is full of imperfect people. There is strife and difficulty. Families struggle together. We see people who are trying to follow God, sometimes in desperation, and they make mistakes along the way. We see a whole spectrum of human emotion. It makes me wonder how much we’re missing in the New Testament. We often tease about how the Old Testament and New Testament are so different, but are they truly? Or were they just written differently? Perhaps the curtain just gets peeled back a tad bit more with the Old Testament and we get to see the bad along with the good. This week, we read about some of those imperfect people, and there is much to learn from them. We can learn from their mistakes in our own quest to follow after God. We can learn to watch our own predilections and flaws and hopefully avoid some of their same obstacles. I want to look at Jacob and Rebekah specifically. It took a while for Rebekah to get pregnant, but when she did, she got pregnant with twins. They wrestled within her and caused her to ask the Lord what was going on. He spoke to Rebekah (likely through the Spirit) and told her that from the two brothers, two nations would be formed. It was also prophesied that the older would serve the younger. Esau was born first and was Isaac’s favorite, and Jacob was born second and was Rebekah’s favorite. Rebekah had received a revelation that Esau would serve Jacob, but she took matters into her own hands. Isaac spoke to Esau and told him to prepare a dinner so that Esau could be blessed. Rebekah pushes and convinces Jacob to trick his father. This is what she tells Jacob. Genesis 27:8-10 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. 9 Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father, such as he loveth: 10 And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death. She convinces Jacob to pretend to be Esau. Isaac is blind, and so the idea is that Isaac will give Esau’s blessing to Jacob. She takes the ruse even further by placing the hairy skins upon Jacob to further trick Isaac into thinking that Jacob is Esau (since Esau is hairy and Jacob isn’t). Her ruse works. Isaac is tricked and gives the birthright blessing to Jacob rather than Esau. Esau comes home and is bitter and upset about what happened. He mourns his father but promises to kill Jacob when the mourning is over. Rebekah sends Jacob far away to her brother, Laban. Jacob’s life isn’t made easier after this. He has been separated from his family. He starts working for his uncle and is tricked more than once. His uncle likewise changes his wages unjustly multiple times. The Lord calls upon Jacob to take his large family back home to where Esau is and Jacob fears his uncle and cousins enough that he tries to do it secretly. It’s a long story, but I told the whole thing because the context is key in order to understand the principle I want to teach. I’ll shorten it to these four details. God whispers to Rebekah. Rebekah takes matters into her own hands, and Jacob listens. Jacob finds himself exiled. Now the fraud and sin are not upon the head of Jacob alone. Rebekah pushed for this pretty hard; Jacob gave in and listened and did as his mother bade him. Both of them found themselves with poignant parallels. When we don’t trust the Lord, we can find ourselves separated from family. Let me explain what I mean. I don’t necessarily mean that the Lord is going to exile you. I’m not prophesying that your children are going to be taken away. What I am teaching is this: not trusting the Lord can keep you separated from the family of God, spiritually and emotionally. It can make you feel like you’re all alone in the world. Jacob had to go off on his own and try to make his own way. He didn’t have anyone to lean on. Do you feel that way? Do you feel that you have no one to lean on? If you’ve been baptized and made covenants and kept those covenants and love the Lord but still don’t trust in His power to handle things (including your sins), you’re going to find yourself separated from Him. Not because He rejects you for not trusting Him, but because you are putting up a wall and keeping yourself from enjoying the relationship that’s possible. Trust in the Lord is an irreplaceable part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can do all of the things, but it won’t matter without the trust. Rebekah was trying to help the prophecy along, and all it did was take her son away from her. She didn’t trust the Lord to handle it. It separated her from her loved one. Jacob listened and found himself separated from everyone. I sat down with a loved one a couple of years ago, and she confided in me that she didn’t think she would make it to the Celestial Kingdom. She insisted that she had made many mistakes and ...
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    9 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Part 2 – Autumn Dickson

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Part 2 – Autumn Dickson
    Feb 27 2026
    The Subtle Destruction of Looking Back by Autumn Dickson The story of Lot’s wife is an intense one. Sodom and Gomorrah was a wicked city, and God commanded Lot to flee with his family and not look back. They are told to leave immediately or be swept away in the destruction. Lot goes and tells his family members that they need to flee, and they laugh at him. Despite trying to warn family, he keeps lingering. It finally gets to the point where the angels grab the hands of Lot, his wife, and his daughters and run. Then Lot’s wife looks back. Genesis 19:26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Lot’s wife was destroyed because she looked back with longing and regret. It seems a bit harsh, but this is true to life. Regardless of how this story played out in real life, it teaches us something important. It is a warning. Looking back has the power to destroy you even if you technically follow the commandments in other ways. He’s not even warning you saying, “I will destroy you if you look back.” He is saying, “Looking back can lead to destruction.” If you look carefully at the wording, it says that she became a pillar of salt. It doesn’t say that God turned her into one. Let’s look at these principles in the context of Lot. The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked. The Lord did rain down justice upon them, but honestly, they probably would have destroyed themselves anyway. The fact that they were trying to hurt the visitors at Lot’s house is proof of this. Not to mention, there comes a certain point where a person can be “destroyed” even if they’re still physically living. I would imagine that many within the city had found this emotional scarring, trauma, emptiness, and hopelessness. The Lord rained down justice on them. But here’s the important principle I want to talk about today: He also rained down justice upon Lot’s wife as she looked back longingly at what she had left behind. The scriptures show a direct and immediate destruction of Lot’s wife. I have wondered what this looked like in real life, but regardless of how the details played out in reality, the principle is crystal clear. When we choose to look back in the same manner as Lot’s wife, we will find the same consequences even if they’re not immediate like they were in the scripture story. What was Lot’s wife longing for? There are two potential answers. Perhaps Lot’s wife was legitimately longing for the sin within the city; she valued sin and set her heart on it. Or…perhaps she was longing for something more neutral. This is equally important to understand because its subtlety can make it even more dangerous. We know loving sin can lead to destruction, but do we also understand that looking back with longing at something more neutral can hurt us? Perhaps she wasn’t looking back at sin but at her home and belongings, things that aren’t inherently evil. Either way, this looking back has the power to eat away at us until we are destroyed (if not physically, then emotionally). When we’re looking at our own lives, I want to focus on that second potential. Perhaps we are not secretly longing for sin. Perhaps we long for what might have been or for good things that we left behind, or even neutral things that we left behind. Let me give you some potential examples of longing that could lead to personally destroying oneself. “I wish I had married so-and-so. I wish I could rewind the clock and try again.” “Why did the Lord ask me to leave my home behind? I hate this place. I hate that I lost so much.” “I miss high school and college. Life is so hard now. It’s not fun.” “The Church didn’t let me do anything. I missed out on so much growing up.” In cases like this, we don’t often immediately turn into pillars of salt. Oftentimes, the consequences aren’t immediate either which is precisely why they can be so dangerous. Despite the lack of salt or immediacy, these thoughts have the power to destroy us anyway. Even if these thoughts never technically lead us all the way “back into the city,” they still hold enough power over us to make us miserable despite new and good circumstances. We can live our whole lives sitting at the window and looking back at what we lost, sacrificing what the Lord is trying to give to us or sacrificing the things that could give us happiness now and in the future. Discontent poisons the present. Regret can become our identity. Your life right now feels barren, not because it is barren but because you refuse to see the good. These kinds of thoughts can poison your current relationships, the ones that have the power to offer the joy you apparently miss so much. You may have plenty, but you’re too busy emotionally investing yourself in an empty past. There is no gratitude, and therefore, no happiness. Bitterness has the power to leave you destroyed even if you’re not turned into a pillar of salt. Let it go. It...
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    9 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Jennifer Roach Lees

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Jennifer Roach Lees
    Feb 24 2026

    Jennifer and guest Sarah Allen discuss the topic of polygamy.

    Sarah Allen was a Senior Researcher with FAIR, a former member of Scripture Central’s research team, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. An avid reader, she loved studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She was a co-moderator of the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She was also a co-host of FAIR’s “Me, My Shelf, & I” podcast.

    Jennifer Roach Lees holds a Master in Divinity as well as a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She is a licensed mental health therapist and lives in Utah.

    The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.
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    22 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 18–23 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson
    Feb 23 2026
    On Behalf of Ten by Autumn Dickson The Old Testament is chock full of stories. One of the stories this week is about Sodom and Gomorrah. They were an incredibly wicked city, and the Lord destroyed them. Before the Lord does so, He talks to Abraham about it. Abraham has a whole conversation with the Lord where he asks the Lord not to destroy the city if he can find righteous people within it. First, Abraham asks the Lord to spare it if he can find 50 righteous people. Then he keeps decreasing that number until we reach this point: Genesis 18:32 And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. The Lord agrees to not destroy it for the sake of ten righteous people. This is an oft-repeating principle throughout scriptures. The Lord preserves nations because of a few righteous within it. The first example that comes to mind is Ammonihah. When Ammonihah killed and exiled all of the believers, it was ripe for destruction, and that was precisely what happened. The entire city was demolished by the Lamanites. The second one that comes to mind is in Isaiah 65 where the Lord talks about preserving the vine on behalf of a small cluster of good grapes. It repeats far more than that, but those are just a couple of examples. And of course, there is a type in this. Let’s talk about it. Sometimes it’s not about preserving a nation but a person. Abraham loved people enough that He pleaded with the Lord to save the city if he could find even a little bit of righteousness within it. Abraham is a type of Christ, and Christ pleads on our behalf even when there is only a little bit of righteousness within us. He loves us and wants us to have time to figure it out. It is important to understand what that means and why He does it. When the Lord preserves a nation on behalf of the righteous who are dwelling there, He isn’t declaring the entire nation righteous. He isn’t turning a blind eye to the wickedness found there. He doesn’t plan on interceding on behalf of those who are unrepentant. For them, it will be as if no atonement had been made. Can you imagine how Lot’s daughters might have felt if Heavenly Father ignored what they had tried to do? Can you imagine how minimalized and cast aside and unsafe they would feel? Mercy and intercession are not about ignoring wickedness. Rather, it is because He is providing the righteous with an opportunity to grow if possible. In Alma 13, we read more about the king of Salem, Melchizedek. Melchizedek is a person from the Old Testament who blessed Abraham at one point. He was also king over a city that had waxed strong in abomination. They had “all” gone astray and were “full” of wickedness, except for Melchizedek. It was just Melchizedek. And yet, through the preaching of Melchizedek, the people repented and were saved. When it comes to our own hearts, the Lord is willing to intercede if we repent. If there is a shred of goodness in us that holds sway, there is a chance to be saved. On the flip side, we read about Ammonihah that I mentioned previously. Alma went there, was rejected, and left. He was commanded by an angel to return again, and in doing so, he came to Amulek. Amulek’s home welcomed him in and blessed him. After Alma and Amulek were preaching, some were converted but the leaders of Ammonihah killed them by fire. Alma and Amulek escape, and Ammonihah is destroyed. If we willfully kill those good seeds within us and reject Christ that thoroughly, He will not plead on our behalf. He does not save us in our sins. He saves us from our sins when we’re trying to escape them. He saves us long enough to let our choices play out in either direction, to the ultimate rejection of Him or to our repentance. I want to expand the example of Ammonihah just a bit. There are times when the Lord chooses to rain down His justice on purpose. There are times when He actively brings down trials and tragedy upon His people. When the wickedness is so bad that a softer answer won’t hit the mark, the Lord is not afraid of using a hard answer. There are times that He directly brings about difficulty in an attempt to reach us. I wonder if it’s just a tad different with the city of Ammonihah. I wonder if the Lord didn’t have a hand in bringing the Lamanites to their doorstep to destroy them. I wonder if the Lord simply didn’t protect them any longer. There is a type in this. Sometimes the Lord purposefully rains down difficulty to try and shake us awake to our awful condition. But when it comes to a “final” judgment, He simply steps aside and doesn’t plead on our behalf. It is as if there is no atonement of Jesus Christ. Ammonihah wasn’t a final, final judgment, but it was a type of final judgment. It was meant to teach us something about the nature of eternity. The Lord wasn’t trying to reach them anymore; they had already shown that ...
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    8 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Part 2 – Autumn Dickson

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Part 2 – Autumn Dickson
    Feb 20 2026
    Do You See the Angels? by Autumn Dickson The beginning of Abraham’s story is a well-known one in our church. He was almost sacrificed on an altar because he believed in the one true God. The priests “laid violence” upon him, and then this happened. Abraham 1:15 And as they lifted up their hands upon me, that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord my God, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood by me, and immediately unloosed my bands; Abraham calls out to God, and he receives a vision of the Almighty. An angel stood by him and loosed his bands. Here’s my question. How did this event play out for the priest? Did he see the angel or did he turn around and Abraham was free and running? The scriptures later note that the priest was smitten, but that could mean anything. Did the angel smite him right there? Did he die later for something that seemed natural? The rest of the land was smitten by famine; this comes from the Lord, and yet, how many of the people saw the Lord’s hand in it? And then, of course, this also happened. Abraham 1:11 Now, this priest had offered upon this altar three virgins at one time, who were the daughters of Onitah, one of the royal descent directly from the loins of Ham. These virgins were offered up because of their virtue; they would not bow down to worship gods of wood or of stone, therefore they were killed upon this altar, and it was done after the manner of the Egyptians. What did the priest see when he sacrificed these three women? I’m almost positive that he wouldn’t answer, “Divine intervention.” What did the virgins see? Maybe nothing at first. Maybe there was no vision or angel to comfort them as they passed through to the other side, but they saw enough that they refused to bow down to idols. And then, after passing through to the other side, I’m sure they saw something wonderful. When you look at your own life, what do you see? Do you see the angel? Do you see the loosed bands or are you still laying on the altar, convinced that you’re still tied down? Do you see the intervention of God? Do you see the Lord standing ready to welcome you to where you’re going? Do you see the end from the beginning? Maybe not exactly, but do you see it? I type my prayers. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million more times. Writing down my prayers has changed my life. In this specific context, I have realized that writing my prayers helps me see. There have been times where I have seen the Lord’s hand as I’ve looked back. There have been times when I’ve written and asked for something very specific in my prayers only to find them answered with exactly what I asked. There have been times when I was subconsciously led to write something down, and I found the Lord intervening on my behalf according to what I wrote down. But it goes beyond that. Writing my prayers has helped me see, to an extent, what the Lord has coming for me. One of my favorite games to play is, “How do I want this to turn out?” Whenever I’m facing hard decisions or moving parts or uncertain details, I pray for the end that I want. I pray for my most important things, sometimes I add in a couple of extras that I would like, and then I end it with asking for His will. It is so soothing. Our world is often plagued with anxiety. People find themselves overwhelmingly frightened by what the coming days could bring. Writing my prayers often placates that anxiety, not because Heavenly Father is going to give me whatever I want, but because praying reminds me that He’s going to give me what’s best for me. There are times when I’m praying, and I feel guided. He starts to guide my words in a different direction. Sometimes I pray for a different solution that addresses things I didn’t anticipate. Sometimes I pray for deliverance, and He guides me to pray for growth and spiritual gifts to rise to the occasion. Even if I’m not delivered, I often feel empowered. There are times when I’m praying, and I don’t necessarily feel guided. I simply feel much better after visualizing some of the best ways my scenario could play out. Honestly, it increases my faith. Even if my idea of a best-case-scenario doesn’t play out, I am reminded that the Lord is writing the best-case-scenario. I get to look at what I believe is a neat and tidy “happy ending” and remember that the Lord is writing my story. I’m not sure Abraham or the virgins would have written their stories in the same way that the Lord wrote them, but I’m pretty positive that after seeing their “endings,” they applauded the Lord for His wisdom, mercy, justice, and foresight. The Lord is on our team, and He truly does have the ultimate foresight. We can lean on Him for all of it. We don’t have to see the end from the beginning in vivid detail. The only end we truly need to ...
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    13 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Jennifer Roach Lees

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Jennifer Roach Lees
    Feb 17 2026

    Jennifer Roach Lees holds a Master in Divinity as well as a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She is a licensed mental health therapist and lives in Utah.

    The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.
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    19 m
  • Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson

    Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson
    Feb 17 2026
    What True Worship Looks Like by Autumn Dickson I have been thinking a lot about what it means to worship God lately. It keeps popping up through random little avenues in my life. We’ve had the opportunity to have the missionaries in our home who taught about the ten commandments and only worshipping the one and true God. I’ve engaged in a couple of conversations about our beliefs of exaltation and what it means to become like our Heavenly Parents. I also recently saw a post about how celebrating Halloween is worshipping the occult, and so I asked myself, is that the truth? I love Halloween, and so I wanted to speak with the Lord and make sure I wasn’t doing anything He didn’t want me to do. What does it mean to avoid idolatry and only worship Heavenly Father? Let’s read a couple of verses in Abraham to give us some principles to live by. Abraham 1:6 For their hearts were set to do evil, and were wholly turned to the god of Elkenah, and the god of Libnah, and the god of Mahmackrah, and the god of Korash, and the god of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; “…their hearts were wholly turned to the god of…” Your heart is representative of what you truly love. You can go to church and still have your heart oriented somewhere else. You can profess belief in our Heavenly Father and still not worship Him. You can watch Come Follow Me videos all you want, but if your heart is not engaged, it won’t save you. And I believe that’s the key here. Only the Lord can save us. There are many ways that He saves us, one of which being an entrance into the kingdom of God, but there are many ways that He holds us and cares for us here on earth. He saves us by bringing true joy and peace. That’s what it boils down to. He doesn’t save us for the sake of saving us, and though that may seem like a silly nuance, it’s really important. He saves us because He wants us to be happy. Part of worshipping the only true God is understanding that. Only the Lord can save us. Only the Lord can bring us true joy and peace. We often ask: Is your heart centered on Jesus Christ? Do you only worship the true and living God? Perhaps a fantastic follow-up litmus test is this: Is your search for joy and peace centered on Jesus Christ? The key word here is “centered.” That doesn’t mean you can’t have other things that make you happy and bring you joy. I believe that the Lord did what He did in order to give us an opportunity to enjoy other things in the context of eternity. There is a reason we keep hearing about the mansions in heaven. We can enjoy incredible things, but what matters in relation to the word “worship” is where our enjoyment is centered. Let’s make it come full circle. Why is it important to center our worship, joy, and peace on the Savior? Because everything else will leave us ultimately empty. Nothing else can save you. Nothing else can truly bring joy and peace. There are many wonderful, incredible things out there that bring deep and lasting joy, but all of it will come to naught unless you have something more solid and capable: namely, Jesus Christ. So I go and have fun and enjoy Halloween, all while keeping an eye on the fact that it doesn’t matter without Christ. My joy and peace are anchored in Him. Here is another verse to give us a second litmus test of worship. Abraham 1:8 Now, at this time it was the custom of the priest of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to offer up upon the altar which was built in the land of Chaldea, for the offering unto these strange gods, men, women, and children. Before, we covered, “What is bringing you happiness? Is your peace and joy centered on Christ?” My next question is this: what are you willing to sacrifice for these other things that you love? What are you paying for it? There are more questions we can ask that relate directly back to the experience of Abraham. Namely, are you sacrificing others? Are you sacrificing precious relationships with your family members? Are you sacrificing the needs and wants of others who are depending on you? Look at how you spend time throughout the day. Look at the things that bring you a lot of happiness. What do those things cost in time, energy, and resources? What are you dedicating to it? Are sports taking up so much time that you fail to spend quality time with family? Are you so obsessed with to-do lists that your kids are viewed as obstacles rather than purpose? Are you so caught up in social media that your kids miss you? Are you so caught up in anything else on earth that you’re sacrificing true joy? Which leads to another follow-up question. Are you willing to hand what you love over to the Lord should He ask? I think of my love of Halloween. If the prophet came out tomorrow and said that we weren’t going to celebrate Halloween anymore, would I listen? It’s okay to mourn things you love, but are you willing to hand it over as a sacrifice if the Lord asks? He should stand above all other things in ...
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    11 m