In 1 Nephi 11:22 Says the “love of God...is the most desirable above all other things”, yet if you took a poll of what people desired most I doubt that the Love of God would be at the top of the list. I tried to find if anyone had done this poll with a quick google search and couldn’t find anything substantial. But my guess is beyond the basic needs of life (food, shelter, clothing, health), people probably just want to be happy. In I Nephi 11:23 is says that the love of God is “the most joyous to the soul”, which sounds like it is pretty desirable to me.
I think that the “love of God” is manifest in a variety of ways. I think most people desire to be understood, appreciated, supported, and considered. People desire trust, consistency, and connection. The “love of God” provides is a manifestation of these desires for individuals regardless of what people have offended or hurt them. The “love of God” can provide assurance and hope to anyone anywhere, but where I would think it is most efficacious is when a person feels otherwise alone, discourage, depressed, or hurt. You can always have access to the “love of God”
Friday, April 19, 2019
Thursday, April 11, 2019
”They Shall be Blessed”
In verse 2 of 1 Nephi 14 a prophecy is made concerning the Gentiles that “they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land forever”. I have actually been thinking about what it means to receive blessings and be blessed and the deeper question of “why”. I feel that I am living in a time where this prophecy is being fulfilled, and I am one of many people who are “blessed”.
When I was younger I used to wonder why I was given so much in this life. My feelings of gratitude for my family, my faith, my health overwhelmed me sometimes. I would compare the ease and opportunities in my life to the lack of such in other people of the world. I didn’t understand what I did to deserve a more fortunate circumstance than the billions of people born into poverty, ignorance, subjection, or misery. I kept wanting to point to some logical cause and effect, and although I feel there are some answers to that question, I was mostly left with more questions on the lack of justice and fairness of it all.
Recently I have felt enlightened on a new perspective of my “blessings”. My thoughts on this are not neceassarily new, but have felt more real as I have grown older and am in a different stage of life. My line of thinking as a young man was focused on the past and what led to my current state. For much of my life I also thought little of the future, or when I did think of the future it was only in chunks (what college am I going to go to, when I get married, what do I want to be when I grow up). But now I have mostly arrived at the points where I had been focused for so long (marriage, children, career), and I am more focused on what I am going to accomplish now that I have arrived than the journey of how to get there.
So with that new line of thinking I realize that my “blessings” have put me in a position where I can help and influence others. I have always known that service is important and have enjoyed opportunities to help in whatever capacity I can, but now it feels more fundamental. Now it feels like this is the purpose of my very existence. This has been a very liberating line of thinking for me. Regardless of how I got here, I am here. And now I can look at injustice, a lack of fairness, poverty, ignorance, subjection, and even misery as an opportunity to serve, to help, to enlighten, to bless the lives of others in whatever way possible. I truly feel “blessed” and that brings me joy, but it doesn’t stop there, my blessings were meant to serve and help others and that is what I hope to do with the rest of my life as a husband, father, professor, friend, member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, neighbor, acquaintance, researcher, stranger, and person of this world.
When I was younger I used to wonder why I was given so much in this life. My feelings of gratitude for my family, my faith, my health overwhelmed me sometimes. I would compare the ease and opportunities in my life to the lack of such in other people of the world. I didn’t understand what I did to deserve a more fortunate circumstance than the billions of people born into poverty, ignorance, subjection, or misery. I kept wanting to point to some logical cause and effect, and although I feel there are some answers to that question, I was mostly left with more questions on the lack of justice and fairness of it all.
Recently I have felt enlightened on a new perspective of my “blessings”. My thoughts on this are not neceassarily new, but have felt more real as I have grown older and am in a different stage of life. My line of thinking as a young man was focused on the past and what led to my current state. For much of my life I also thought little of the future, or when I did think of the future it was only in chunks (what college am I going to go to, when I get married, what do I want to be when I grow up). But now I have mostly arrived at the points where I had been focused for so long (marriage, children, career), and I am more focused on what I am going to accomplish now that I have arrived than the journey of how to get there.
So with that new line of thinking I realize that my “blessings” have put me in a position where I can help and influence others. I have always known that service is important and have enjoyed opportunities to help in whatever capacity I can, but now it feels more fundamental. Now it feels like this is the purpose of my very existence. This has been a very liberating line of thinking for me. Regardless of how I got here, I am here. And now I can look at injustice, a lack of fairness, poverty, ignorance, subjection, and even misery as an opportunity to serve, to help, to enlighten, to bless the lives of others in whatever way possible. I truly feel “blessed” and that brings me joy, but it doesn’t stop there, my blessings were meant to serve and help others and that is what I hope to do with the rest of my life as a husband, father, professor, friend, member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, neighbor, acquaintance, researcher, stranger, and person of this world.
I am back!
I just finished reading The Book of Mormon again, and although I enjoyed it and felt spiritually enlightened in many instances while reading, most of the time I was thoughtlessly prodding through words with very little thought and reflection. It is time for me to renew this blog, if nothing more for the opportunity to gain more insights and reflections into my life. So after a few year hiatus, I am going to pick up where I left off at 1 Nephi 14.
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