Effects of Faith vs Agency (2019/05/30)

In Ether 12: 13-17 Moroni gives examples of how various individuals' faith affected other people and things.

13 Behold, it was the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the prison to tumble to the earth.
     
14 Behold, it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the change upon the Lamanites, that they were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

15 Behold, it was the faith of Ammon and his brethren which wrought so great a miracle among the Lamanites.

16 Yea, and even all they who wrought miracles wrought them by faith, even those who were before Christ and also those who were after.

17 And it was by faith that the three disciples obtained a promise that they should not taste of death; and they obtained not the promise until after their faith.

Moroni gives examples of how our faith can affect others:
Alma and Amulek-the prison walls
Ammon and brethern-converting the Lamanites
Nephi and Lehi-converting the Lamanites in the prison
3 Nephites-fulfilment of the promise of the transformation of their body

Just as light from a lamp shines on other objects and 'affects' them (making them visible), our faith can radiate onto others and help reveal what their potential can be-that is, what they will allow their potential to be. 

We know it doesn't overpower their own agency, as it says clearly in the book of Alma that many were not converted by Ammon and his brethren because of the hardness of their hearts.  Many Lamanites were not converted because of the influence of those hard hearted Nephite descenters. 

Alma 23:14
And the Amalekites were not converted, save only one; neither were any of the Amulonites; but they did harden their hearts, and also the hearts of the Lamanites in that part of the land wheresoever they dwelt, yea, and all their villages and all their cities.

Both those who were converted and those who were not demonstrates the principle of how 'affecting' and 'agency' dance together. We can shine our 'light' on others, but it doesn't force them to remove the barriers they have built up that blocks the light. People can aggrivate others and encourage them to build barriers, but it doesn't force them to build them or keep them up and refuse to let the light shine on them.

I believe this is the same as the influence of the Spirit of the Lord and the spirit of the devil.  They both encourage us (or whisper to us) to follow their particular direction, but neither is allowed to force us to feel or believe any particular thing.  They just provide the outside 'vibration' so we can see which strings inside of us resonate with them.

They reveal us to ourselves.

Priorities and Stuff (2019/05/07)

In 3 Ne 13:25 the Lord says:
Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment

I think this scripture is not only referring to not worrying about where these necessities of life will come from, it is also referring to the value and priority we put on them.   
How important is it to be stylish?  
How important is it to have the nicest or the nicest looking things or home.  
  
The things and style may not be intrinsically bad,  and there can be some importance regarding thair value and quality.
  
The issue is about the priority we put on them at the sacrifice of other more eternally weighted issues.

To Pack-rat or Not To Pack-rat (2019/05/06)

I'm reading in 3 Ne 13.  I come to verses 19 and 20.  At first I see them as distinctly telling me to stop being a pack-rat.  Then I read verses 21-22, and 23-24.  They all tell me the same thing.

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal;
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

I see these verses as an entire tritise on hourding stuff, being a pack-rat, not being able to let go of stuff.

I'm not sure why or from where I gained the "skill" of being a pack-rat.  I've always attributed it to the fact that my father grew up in the Great Depression, and his father lost their ranch because of it, so he was a pack-rat.  There must be some personal experience I had which made me ressonate with that quality he had and therefore become the same way. 

While I will delve into my emotional history to figure that out, in the mean time, I think I will start to use these scriptures as a template to help me learn how to be less sentimental and to go through my stuff and let it go - either to a second-hand store or to throw it away.

All three of these concepts he gives describe the same paradigm as far as needing to hold onto stuff:

1)Treasures (stuff) on earth vs treasures of experiences with the Spirit and people.  They carry over into the next phase of our lives whereas the physical things do not.

2)Eyesingle to God vs darkened by focusing on my stuff.  In my mind, my stuff gives meaning and definition to who I am and validates what activities I did or experiences I had with someone.  If I realize those experiences are not retained or lost depending on if I still have the physical reminder of them, but they exist eternally separately than their physical reminders, I don't feel I am losing them by throwing away the endless minutia I've collected to remind me of them.

3)Serving God vs Mammon is integrated by the fact that having our minds and focus free to serve God is distracted by having and wanting so much stuff.  So much stuff takes time to collect, clean (if we do), move it around to get to other stuff, keep it sorted in our mind, figure out how to get more, etc., etc., etc.  It is not just our time that it absorbs, but it is our mental energy and capacity it is using up.  We can't have as much of our mind available to God when it also has to keep track of our over-stocked stuff.

Heavy sigh..... I suppose this first awareness is my first big step in the right direction.

Personal Progression Carries Forward (05/04/2019)

I'm reading in 3 Ne 14.  Christ says 'strait' is the way.  I was writing about how we grow up with lots of target rings which create imperfections in us, but we can still be on a 'narrow' path of our own learning and perfecting and leading us to heaven, even if we are not perfect in the process.

Then a series of concepts struck me.  Our experiences and traumas give us target rings which lead to imperfections on our part.  The shock events stem from not knowing that we are valuable children of God and that He will always provide for us, no matter how rough life gets.  I have memories of understanding at non-verbal ages.  Different people have variying insights into life at various ages which, I propose, are a direct result of who they were spititually in the premortal life, not just their life experience here.  

So, Christ's great advancement of who he was spiritually before he was born was the way he was able to:

1    understand perspective that allowed him to see things in a way to not get target rings and to remain in a perfect condition.  Not all target rings come from abuse.  Many are just things that happen for which we are not prepared causing us to conclude we're on our own (no divine father helping us) or we're not OK (no divine relationship with God).  If Jesus' spirit was so much more advanced than ours are, he would have that perspective remain stronger than anyone else ever has been able to.

2 Because he was so spiritually advanced, he was in tune with spiritual revelation so well and so early.  That is why he was able to be taught by angles at early ages.  

The point is that he did not receive an  unfair advantage of being taught by angles that the rest of us did not have which enabled him to be perfect.  One may say that, 'If I had angles teach me in my childhood, I could have been perfect too.'  However, he had angles teach him BECAUSE he was that "in tune,"  NOT he was that "in tune" BECAUSE he had angles. 

This whole thing has given me such a greater awe and respect for him.  He was perfect in the permortal life. That perfection carried on into his mortal life and was strong enough to tame the weaknesses of the flesh.  How much greater my love and gratitude to him for being willing to suffer so that my imperfections can be coreccted and not hold me back for eternity.

References:

Alma 13:5 - 3
3 Ne 14:14
DC 88:40
Alma 12:10
DC 71:6
Matthew 13:12 (11-16)
Isaiah 6:9-10 (the people were not willing to)

Progression of Faith (05/04/2019)

Progression of Nephites' Faith and Converstion

Verse 2 He says he perceives they are weak and cannot understand. (Note that spiritual things are understood by the spirit of the person; the degree of the person's faith correlates to the degree they can undersstand spiritual things.)

Verse 8 He says their faith is sufficient that he should heal them.

Verse 14 He says to the Father he is troubled by the lack of faith of the House of Israel - generalized sounding terms.

Verse 15 He prays marvelous things to the Father for them.

*****
Verse 16-17 they express the internal conversion experience they had.
*****

Verse 20 He says they are blessed because of their faith, and that his joy is full because of them.

The progression of their faith did not happen after they saw the ill and lame healed, in verses 9-10.  It came after he blessed their children and prayed for them.

The point is that it was not a physical thing they saw that converted them.  It was a spiritual thing they felt that converted them.