Reliance on the Lord

This week I was thinking a lot about how my life goes when I try to do things myself and when I really rely on the Lord. As I was reading The Book or Mormon I came to 2 Nephi chapter 24, which professor Griffin called "Isiah's Taunt Song." What stood out to me was the structure of the chapter. In the beginning Isiah is talking about the power and goodness of the Lord. He talks about how God will gather his people in the last days. Then it talks about Lucifer and calls him the "Son of the morning." The next few verses really stood out to me. In verses 13 and 14, two very short verses, it uses the word I 5 times.

"13 For thou hast said in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north;

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High."

I thought about Lucifer's fall came about through not only self centeredness but through pride and a desire to do everything himself. In particular I thought about how the things mentioned in these two verses are things that in a certain sense we are all promised if we stay true and faithful to our covenants. They are all things that Lucifer could have obtained through the plan of salvation and relying on the lord but he chose a different path. The rest of the whole chapter talks about the punishments and woes that befall Satan (and those who follow him).

I realized a long time ago that I needed the Lord but sometimes I need a little reminder. What is important is remembering the power and mercy of the Lord and that we can do all things through him. If our desire is to "be like the most high" our desires are essentially in line with what God wants of us. The key is to keep in mind that we need to always remember him and that if we do he will use his great power to bless us in this life and in the world to come.

What more could he have done?

This week I was thinking a lot about how some people look at all the bad things that happen in the world and at all the evil and use it as "evidence" to show that God doesn't exist. This week I was reading in 2 Nephi 15 and in verse four The Lord asks "What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?" The allegory of the vineyard has always been very special to me since my mission. I think a lot about how much effort The Lord puts into us as people. What really stood out to me in this verse it just that after all that has happened The Lord wants to show that he has never given up and up to the point of taking away our agency there is nothing more the Lord could have done to help his people.

As I think about this in my own life I realize some of the things that The Lord has done in the past to help me and I realize that the only thing that stopped me from receiving greater happiness was myself. The Lord always did his part and never left me alone. It was always me, through my disobedience, that blocked the blessings of the Lord from finding me. It is like Elder Uchtdorf said when he compared the blessings of the lord to rain. He said that the Lord is always pouring endless blessings upon us and we choose to block them from time to time.

We need to always be seeking the blessings of the lord. If we do we will see his hand in our lives and we will be able to return to live with him. God didn't send anyone to this earth to fail. He has done everything that needs to be done so that we can return to live with him. There is nothing that God hasn't done or wont do to help us return to live with him. The only exception to this rule is that he won't take away our agency. If we use our agency to obey the lord we will feel a greater presence of his spirit in our lives.

Reason To Rejoice

This week I was reading in 2 Nephi chapter 9 again and what really stood out to me is the tone that Jacob takes in his writing. In the first half of the chapter Jacob is speaking about the plan of salvation and kind of talking about the process and what is involved in the plan and the second half he talks about justice. It is a beautiful chapter on the atonement and the thing that stood out to me this time was how often he glories in the the Lord. It almost seems that he's so happy and so excited about it all that he can't contain his emotion. He will talk about a topic and when he moves on to a new topic he say's something along the lines of "O how great the... mercy, wisdom, grace, plan, justice ... of our God." He acknowledged that in every aspect of the plan of salvation the greatness of God is shown in some form.

I realized that I used to be like this. On my mission and before it when I was starting to learn about the church on my own I remember finding things out and seeing them as amazing and revolutionary to me and sharing them with the other members I knew and more often than not them saying, not disrespectfully in anyway, "yeah... we learned that in primary." or something along those lines. I still find joy and peace in the gospel but does it make me as excited as it used to? Not usually. Every once and a while I'll find a passage or two that makes me get a glimpse of the greatness of God and those moments are very special to me but I want to continually be glorifying God in all that I do.

I know that as I search the scriptures diligently and seek and pray more to find the joy of the gospel I can get that excitement back. As each of us grow in the gospel and progress our testimonies we will find that our hearts, as Jacob's did, will begin to "delighteth in righteousness" (2Ne. 9:49) to a greater degree. We will still have those awe-inspiring and reverencing spiritual moments but we will also find more opportunities to delight. This is a gospel of joy and every time in my life when I make a sincere effort to grow closer to the gospel, no matter what my circumstances are, I feel an increase in joy in my life.

Keeping our Promise

Today in class we talked quite a bit about Mosia 18:9 where part of our baptismal covenant is explained. As we talked about how it is impossible to keep our promise to stand as a witnesses of God at all times, in all things, in all places. As imperfect human beings we simply can't be perfect even after baptism. On student made the comment that when we repent and take of the sacrament we are clean and perfect in that moment so there are times where we can keep that promise because all the things we did go away with sincere repentance.

As I thought about this I decided to read Alma 36. As I read it I thought about how every covenant has promises associated with it and the promises associated with repentance and keeping that ever important baptismal covenant are written very powerfully in Alma 36. Alma talks about when he repented and he says "When I thought this I could remember my pains no more; yeah, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!" and "There can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy." The moment of repentance where he felt the full blessings of the covenants we make was almost indescribable.

As we repent we can feel greater the effects of the atonement and we can receive the blessings that we have been promised at baptism. While we may not all have experiences like the one that Alma the younger had we will all receive what the lord wants us to receive and what he knows will bless us in the greatest measure. I know that as I've repented I've felt an increase of blessings in my life and that is something I wouldn't trade for anything.