Remember Who You Are

Hugh Nibley said,

“So it was a blessing to the Nephites after all to have the Lamanites on their doorstep to ‘stir them up to remembrance’—‘Happy is the man whom God correcteth’ (Job 5:17). No matter how wicked and ferocious and depraved the Lamanites might be (and they were that!), no matter by how much they outnumbered the Nephites, darkly closing in on all sides, no matter how insidiously they spied and intrigued and infiltrated and hatched their diabolical plots and breathed their bloody threats and pushed their formidable preparations for all-out war, they were not the Nephite problem. They were merely kept there to remind the Nephites of their real problem, which was to walk uprightly before the Lord.”

What things in your life are you wrongly viewing as the real problem, when God has instituted that problem to be more of a reminder than a problem?

Here is another scripture to think about.

D&C 78:19 "And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more."

All things? Heavenly Father, what do you mean by all things?

Well, this scripture might add a bit of light.

The Lord said the following to Joseph Smith while undergoing one of the hardest trials in his life.

Doctrine & Covenants 122
5 If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;
6 If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;
7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

My heart jumps for joy as I have come to recognize the lessons and strength I have grown and received from the struggles of my past. It is possible for us to receive hard trials while smiling because God is with us.

Receive any life struggles with gratitude because God is molding us for something of great worth coming, if we trust Him to mold us against this struggle.

Another Post on Weaknesses

...because I am coming to appreciate more and more the weaknesses I have.

In the spirit of enjoying the journey rather than waiting for happiness in the destination, observe this scripture:

Alma 49:14
"But behold, to their astonishment, the city of Noah, which had hitherto been a weak place, had now, by the means of Moroni, become strong, yea, even to exceed the strength of the city Ammonihah."

What weaknesses would you like to see become strengths? Maybe even your greatest strengths.

What about this scripture, on trusting in the Lord along said journey?

Alma 50:22
"And those who were faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord were delivered at all times..."

Quite a few times in my blog, I have pointed out the use of the word "all" emphatically. All is... encompassing! All times when you need deliverance, He will give it to you if you trust Him. Listen for Him. Know that He guides and He loves and He sees all.

The Emotion in Sacrifice

Yesterday in the temple, I was falling asleep in the first small segments of the endowment session, when I noticed something about Adam and Eve’s sacrifice of lambs in anticipation of the Lamb of God’s sacrifice.

When a righteous man of God in history would need or want to make a sacrifice, they had to obtain a lamb, those cute little lambs, and bring it to the alter. Surely that lamb would have bleated adorably at least once. Surely the sacrificer and sacrificee’s eyes met at least once. Surely the consideration of sacrificing a lamb would have hit the individual as to the difficulty of sacrificing an animal so innocent, so pure, so gentle.

The experience of sacrificing a lamb would have been enough for the sacrificer to feel humbled, thankful, lowly in heart, meek, especially in the anticipation of One who would come, one who was worthy, innocent, gentle, most loving, and self-giving in every good way. One who would free us from the bondages of sin and death.

I believe this is a major difference between the sacrifices of Cain and Abel – one had an emotional, spiritual connection, the other did not.

I believe this is a major difference between one who truly keeps the Sabbath day holy and one who does not. Those who play the wrong games on the Sabbath, who watch the wrong shows on the Sabbath, who engage in pursuits that don't bring themselves closer to God on the Sabbath are merely indicating that they lack that spiritual, emotional connection that God longs to share with them. Harshly speaking, I believe they are offering up their fruits of the field as did Cain if they claim that they are keeping His Sabbath. They are living beneath their privileges.

Nature's Musical Testimony

“Earth with her ten thousand flow'rs...”

So begins a song I listened to today. Another line says,

“Songs beneath and songs above bear this record: God is love.”

It is an acapella cover by Eclipse of the hymn "God is Love.”

As that line was sung, I looked out the window of the train to see a landscape of rail roads, roads, weedy grass, houses, a cloudy sky... and I heard tunes!

I've been waiting for this for a while... To hear tunes inside me from phenomena or objects around me.

I looked at the weeds and heard a staccato-textured, spontaneous tune on a xylophone and plucked string instruments.

My mind turned to the rails of the traintracks, and I heard brass instruments, with lots of percussion.

The overcast sky filled my mental music player with strings and gentle drumming.

Albeit the tunes were smudgy for what my mind could conjure, but I could hear them faintly, and I could feel them.

Then my mind applied the doctrine regarding nature's Creator: “All around and all above bear this record: God is love!”

I smiled to myself and agreed, “Yes, they do. They indeed do.”

Moroni's Example

Don't you just love Captain Moroni?

Sheri Dew wonders if he is still single.

Anyway. His example throughout the war chapters of the Book of Mormon is just stunning!

In an attempt to "liken all scriptures unto us" I analyzed the following verses and made a table.

Alma 48:7-9
7 Moroni, on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God.
8 Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land.
9 And in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites.

This is the table.

Moroni	Me
Forts (“Places of Resort”)	“Sanctuaries” of rest, away from busyness, danger, etc. Family Best friends God & prayer Nature Holiday Sabbath day Reading Music
Cities and lands	Freedom to choose how I live, Relationships, all things that I want to protect spiritually and physically.
Walls
Men (“in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men”)	Dedication and attention to improvement and overcoming. “The most important commandment is the one you are struggling with.”

Notice that I left one blank. I invite the reader to fill that in, as well as make additions to other entries, or extend the table.

Thanks to English class and Seminary classes for teaching me methods of analyzing texts!

I particularly enjoyed identifying the parallel I called "sanctuary." We all need it! We all need refuges from the storms of life, whether those storms be struggles in the world, personal weaknesses, difficult relationships, an assignment due tomorrow... we all need some sort of sanctuary. On the topic of last-minute-efforts-on-assignments, the sanctuary could be remembering to see the biggest picture of God's plan for us, thinking of the bigger test of mortality.

Enjoy the table!

Opportunities

Alma 43:9
“And now the design of the Nephites was to support their lands, and their houses, and their wives, and their children, that they might preserve them from the hands of their enemies; and also that they might preserve their rights and their privileges, yea, and also their liberty, that they might worship God according to their desires.”

I would like to focus on the line, “support their lands, and their houses, and their wives, and their children...”

Land belongs to an individual, and he is free to do with it as he pleases.

Land could thus represent opportunity. We receive opportunities, and we are free to leave them to grow weeds, or plow and plant and build on them to grow skill and talents, education and resources.

Houses represent such. With houses we create homes, we build families, we design refuges from the challenges of life. Our talents in life do the same: houses represent the talents and resources in our disposal.

Wives are mentioned first in this verse, of apl people. Wives complete us men in purpose and identity. Wives become the most important person to us in mortality. Our priority is to God becaue God's priority is to the spousal relationship. His goal is to perpetuate the relationship by supporting it with principles and commandments with which we can use our talents and resources in the realms of obedience and agency – doing many good things out of our own free will.

And children. Need I say more than to mention the skills and character needed in the raising of a child? Almost anyone can create a human, but it takes a truly dedicated parent to give that child life.

This verse teaches us that the successful marriage and family is built upon how we treat the opportunities placed in our path. Do we maximise our learning experience from them? Or do we shrug many off?

It is left as an exercise to the reader to relate this to themselves.