Alma 10

Nothing deep and profound today... instead, just kind of a funny thought.

verse 32 Now the object of these lawyers was to get gain; and they got gain according to their employ.

Apparently there is a long-established tradition of not having positive feelings toward lawyers. Even the Book of Mormon participates! LOL

Alma 8-9

When Alma preaches to the people of Ammonihah I read through it and wonder - how on Earth can they listen to the prophet telling them to repent or be destroyed and yet they don't hear him and don't change their ways? How can they just ignore him that way?

And then I wonder what things I have heard the prophet or other general authorities say that I haven't taken seriously enough. I'm sure there are many...

We turn on conference each year, but I know sometimes I don't listen as closely as I should. This year my goal is to really and truly listen to the speakers and hear what they are saying. I've been thinking about making general conference packets for the kids to help them pay attention. Maybe what I really need is a packet for myself!

Alma 7

Verse 15:
Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.

Soemthing about this verse just speaks to me. "Fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you." Sin is so easy to slip into. Stop paying attention for just a short time and you can slide into small sins. Which lead to larger and larger. And it's all so easy - much easier than always doing what you know you should. But fear not, because there is always a way back. Christ's sacrifice allows us to repent of our sins and return to a state of grace.

Alma 6

Verse 2 caught my attention today:

And it came to pass that whosoever did not belong to the church who repented of their sins were baptized unto repentance, and were received into the church.

I just love the reminder that repentence is available to us. No matter what our sins, we can repent and be washed clean. It reminds me of a favorite quote of mine: "It doesn't matter how far you've travelled down the wrong path; you can turn around."

Alma 5

Alma speaks a lot of strong words about repentance in this chapter. A reminder that we should be repenting every day and trying our hardest to do the things we should. We never know when the day will come that we are going to meet God, so we should live our lives in such a way that we will be prepared whenever that day comes.

Alma 4

I've read about the righteous/pride/humility cycle in the Book of Mormon many times (you know, everyone is righteous, then they start to get prideful, they fall away from the church, and then they have to be humbled so they can be righteous again). I believe today is the first time I caught reference that SOME of the people were prideful. It wasn't the whole church going down the bad path - some grew prideful and fell away, but there were others still there faithfully doing the things they should.

I don't know why that strikes me so strongly this morning, but it just feels wonderful to think that even in the midst of the pridefulness and humbling that occurred, there were still those who just quietly went along with living their lives according to the commandments of God. We should remember that even when all around you seem to be doing wrong, you can still continue to do right.


Also - example of separation of church and state when Alma gives the judgement seat to Nephihah so that he (Alma) can be just the spiritual leader instead of both spiritual and secular leader.

Alma 3

26 And in one year were thousands and tens of thousands of souls sent to the eternal world, that they might reap their rewards according to their works, whether they were good or whether they were bad, to reap eternal happiness or eternal misery, according to the spirit which they listed to obey, whether it be a good spirit or a bad one.

27 For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey, and this according to the words of the spirit of prophecy; therefore let it be according to the truth.

A nice reminder that we each have our free agency. We choose our path in life and reap the consequences, whether good or bad, based on our choices.

That part is pretty easy for me to accept and understand. The harder part is remembering that everyone else has their free agency as well. When you see someone headed down a bad path, you wish that you could force them to turn around. But their free agency means that they have to make their own choices and face their own consequences.

When you see someone harmed by bad choices someone else makes, you want to ask: "Why does God allow this to happen?" And it's because EVERYONE has the ability to choose for themselves. And when they make bad choices, sometimes the consequences affect innocent bystanders. And that's so hard to accept sometimes. But free agency for me and for you also means free agency for the guy who hits his wife, or the mother who neglects her children, or the teenager who wants to get high.They have to be able to make choices, too.

Yes, a loving God could intervene and take away their ability to make bad choices. But because he is a loving God, he has chosen NOT to take away anyone's ability to choose for themselves. Only through choosing and making mistakes can you grow and improve. Free agency is God's plan for us, and following God's plan sometimes means accepting the difficulties as well as the blessings.

An another topic...

I was listening to a podcast today (http://www.theculturalhallpodcast.com/) and heard a wonderful thing from one of the podcast participants:

"The atonement of Jesus Christ is not just something you read about… It’s not just about a man on a cross… But when you feel it, when it touches you… [you know that] there is no one that’s gone too far."

Alma 2

Alma 2 starts off as a political campaign and ends in a horrible war. When Amlici wanted to be king, he had "drawn away much people after him." If you equate this to the current day, we have a presidential campaign going on where people aspire to be "king." They strategize and campaign and try very hard to draw the voters after them. And when the campaigning is done, we'll do as they did in verses 5 and 6:

 5 And it came to pass that the people assembled themselves together throughout all the land, every man according to his mind...

 6 And thus they did assemble themselves together to cast in their voices concerning the matter; and they were laid before the judges.

I find it interesting to read this because I think we don't often think about democracy in the ancient world. But this seems like a clear example of democracy to me. Amlici sought to be king, but was rejected by the voice of the people.

Thankfully, today our political battles end may not always end with a gracious loser (or a gracious winner, for that matter), but at least they end without a bloody battle and tens of thousands of deaths.

As sick of the election season as I am already, it's good to find something to be grateful for when it comes to politics!

Back Again - Alma 1

Wow... the last post was in May 2010. I really fell off the bandwagon there. I'll do my best to climb back up.

The first chapter of Alma talks about priestcraft and how those who preached priestcraft thought that the priest should be supported by the church and esteemed above others in the church. And reading that, I could see that priestcraft is alive and well in today's society.

There are many churches where there is a paid clergy; the priest (or pastor or whatever s/he is called in that particular denomination) is supported by the members of the church. Being the priest is their job and they don't have to support themselves otherwise. Now in some cases, I can see where this is not such a bad thing. In a small congregation where the priest is supported modestly by tithes and offerings of the members, s/he then has the ability to focus completely on the needs of the members and the church.

But what really struck me was verses 5-6:

5 And it came to pass that he did teach these things so much that many did believe on his words, even so many that they began to support him and give him money.

6 And he began to be lifted up in the pride of his heart, and to wear very costly apparel, yea, and even began to establish a church after the manner of his preaching.

It made me think of megachurches and televangelists and other instances where the preacher seems less concerned for the good of the church members and more about the size, income, and power of the church.

The lay-clergy in our church have to work at a separate job to support themselves and their families. And while you could argue that this splits their focus so that they can't do as much for the church, I think the more important part is that it helps them to stay humble and to remember that it's the church that's important, not the leaders.

I think that right there also explains a lot about some of the controversy swirling around the whole Mitt Romney for President situation. So many people seem to worry that Mitt Romney would be taking orders directly from Salt Lake and be some kind of puppet allowing the church to take control of his presidency. Supposedly this is because Mitt Romney is a "high-level church leader." I've seen a lot of articles that focus on that... and it's true, he has at times been a church leader. Stake president, bishop I think...

But what those who don't know the church have a hard time grasping is that this lay-clergy of ours functions differently. The man who is stake president today may be a teaching the 3-year-olds in Sunbeams tomorrow. And no one would see it as a demotion or loss of prestige of any kind. Somehow I doubt that some of these famous televangelists would be just as willing to teach a children's Sunday School class as to pontificate grandly from the pulpit.

Mosiah 28-29

The birth of democracy! Okay, I guess I don't know for sure that there weren't other democratic societies before this time, but this is the first you read of it in the Book of Mormon at least. I like the way that Mosiah carefully points out that having a king rule over the land is not bad in itself, it's just that you don't have any guarantee that handing the crown down by rule of succession will result in a string of good kings. And once you have a bad ruler, he/she can drag all the people down too.

With democracy you're not always guaranteed to have the best person leading the country either. People can make bad choices. And of course, not everyone agrees with the choices that are made. If you're in the group whose candidate is not elected, you generally feel that it was a bad choice. But the important thing is that we at least had the opportunity to make our choice. And in a few years down the road, we can make a choice again. In spite of any flaws American democracy may have, we're so lucky to live in a country with this system in place!

Mosiah 27

I love the story of Alma and the sons of Mosiah. They were so wicked and tried to bring down the church, but even they could have a spiritual experience and a change of heart. They changed so much that instead of dragging down the church, they tried to make up for the damage they had previously done and became great missionaries for the church. So much so that "...they were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer. And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace; they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth." (verses 36-37)

Mosiah 26

We had a nice Sharing Time lesson in Primary about repentance. It was simple, as it needed to be for the little kids there, but really hit on all the steps of repentance. I liked watching the little 4 &5 year olds in our class really start to grasp the concepts.

I guess the memory of that lesson is why verses 29 and 30 struck me as especially important today.

29 Therefore I say unto you, Go; and whosoever transgresseth against me, him shall ye judge according to the sins which he has committed; and if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him also.

30 Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.

How reassuring is it to know that if you confess your sins, you can be forgiven? And especially comforting to me is verse 30, that says God will forgive and forgive and forgive. As many times as we make a mistake, God will continue to forgive. As someone who makes a lot of mistakes, that's very good to hear!

A little off topic...

With a lot going on right now and having been gone on vacation and various other things, I've kind of fallen off the bandwagon here again. I'll get back to it soon!

But in the meantime, I was reading something at lunch that really struck a cord with me. The book I'm reading is The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. It about a man who decides to spend a year living his life very literally according to the rules in the Bible, including things in the Old Testament like don't wear clothing that is a mixture of linen and wool.

He starts to question why it is so important to obey this law. A very devout man replies that we don't know. And we don't have to know.

"This is a law that God gave us. We have to trust Him. He's all-powerful. We're like children. Sometimes parents have laws children don't understand. Like when you tell a child not to touch fire, he doesn't understand why, but it is good for him."

I think this is an incredible insight! And it's something that I believe, but I've just never heard it phrased quite this way before. It helps me with things like the Word of Wisdom. Sometimes people have asked me for very specific reasons - but why don't you drink tea? Why don't you drink coffee? Why can you have a Coke or a piece of chocolate if you can't have coffee? And I always try to explain that it's not really necessarily the caffeine and that's why chocolate is okay. And I have to admit that I don't really know all the reasons behind the things we're told to avoid - but I trust in my prophets' teachings and so I do avoid what they say to avoid. But that's always felt a little weak to me, even though it's really kind of the same argument as the man in the book gave.

I guess the difference is just that he's so much more eloquent than I am. So I'm going to remember this for the next time I come across something that I can't explain or have a hard time accepting. This is a law that God gave us. We have to trust Him. And if we trust him, we believe that following His law is what's good for us, and we do as He says.

Mosiah 25

24 And they were called the people of God. And the Lord did pour out his Spirit upon them, and they were blessed, and prospered in the land.

We should be striving to be the people of God so that we can receive these same blessings!

Mosiah 22-24

Mosiah 24:14 is one of my favorite scriptures.

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

When I was in graduate school, I was a very busy girl. I was working about 60 hours a week (because my work was also my final project for my Masters degree, so I was putting in extra time to finish the project). I was also taking a double load of classes. I would get up at 8 a.m. and go up the hill to school for classes in the morning, then go to work after lunch. Between work and writing papers and other projects for class, I usually didn't leave the computer lab until 3 or 4 in the morning. I would go back to my apartment and get a couple of hours of sleep, then start all over again.

I was feeling the pressure already, then, just a few weeks before my final defense of my Masters project and then graduation, I received a letter from the registrar's office. Apparently there was some sort of problem with my graduation paperwork and they were telling me that I would not be able to graduate on time after all, just for want of this single piece of paper.

I cried. I cried and cried and cried. I was just so stressed and so tired and I just couldn't cope. It was after hours so I couldn't call the registrar's office to see what was going on. All I could think was that after all my hard work, I wasn't going to be able to graduate. It's not like it would have been the end of the world, really. At most, it would have meant I had to go through one more semester of classes and then graduate in the fall instead of the spring. But at that moment, it felt like the end of the world to me.

I got ready for bed, which included reading my scriptures. I read Mosiah 24 that night and when I came to verse 14, an incredible soothing calm came over me. I suddenly just KNEW that everything would be okay. That the Lord would help me bear my burden and that I could relax and leave it to him. I felt instantly better. I went to bed and was able to sleep well, knowing that I could deal with things in the morning.

The next day I was able to go to the registrar's office and get things straightened out. They didn't want to be helpful at first, but I was able to remain calm enough to think instead of just reacting. I enlisted the help of my professors and they were able to get things fixed so that I graduated on time. And I have always remembered the sense of relief and calm that I received when I read that verse.

Mosiah 19-21

These chapters tell the story of the people of Limhi under the rule of the Lamanites. It's amazing and sad to me to read how much adversity and trial it took for the people to finally humble themselves to call upon the Lord for assistance. Looking at it from our perspective - many years later, reading a brief summarization - it seems so obvious what they should have done instead. Yet to those who were living their lives in that time, I'm sure it was not so clear-cut and easy to see.

In later years, will people look at accounts of our time and wonder why we acted the way they did and why we couldn't see what we should have done?

Mosiah 18

A good reminder of what kind of people and church members we ought to be:

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

Mosiah 17

Abinadi was put to death because he would not deny the words and commandments of God. I obviously never want to be in any kind of situation that would be in any way equivalent to that, but I do hope that I can someday grow and progress to have the kind of rock-solid faith in God that allowed Abinadi to be faithful even when faced with death.

Mosiah 16

It's been a crazy week and I slacked off a bit. But I had a visit from my visiting teacher who gave a lesson on the importance of personal scripture study - which prodded me to get back on the ball with mine!

Verses 8 and 9 seemed especially beautiful to me today.

8 But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.

9 He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.

In my last post, I talked about sweet Isaac who died at such a young age (not even a year old). I don't think anyone could ever say that death had no sting in this case. But I love the way it is put in verse 8, that the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.

Whenever someone you know passes away, it still stings and hurts and makes you sad, but you can let that sadness be swallowed up in Christ. You can choose to focus on the resurrection and endless light and endless life.

I think this perfectly describes how Isaac's parents have handled this tragedy. Of course they have been devastated and hurt and sad. But even at his funeral, such a short time after his death, they were doing their best to focus on Isaac's eternal life and how they will be together again some day. They are a great example of letting the sting of death be swallowed up in Christ.