Prev | List | Random | Next
Powered by RingSurf!

Sunday, February 11, 2007

 

Book of Mormon Blog II - Here We Go Again!!!

The following is an excerpt from a talk given Feb. 11, 2007

"Two weeks ago during the passing of the sacrament at church I was feeling spiritually weak, stressed out and alone. I sent out a silent plea to the Lord, 'Help me, please. I'm struggling.'

As soon as I had thought those words, I knew what his answer would be. 'I have already given you the greatest possible help, The Gift of the Holy Spirit, but you are not using it.'

I realized that I was not seeking a partnership with Christ through prayer. I was alone because I had stopped reaching out to Christ. I was weak and spiritually starving to death because I wasn’t reading the scriptures. I knew what my problems were and their solutions, but I quickly justified myself that I don't have time. I'm overwhelmed by working, attending college and taking care of my family. I drag myself around tired all day; study my text books in all my spare time and drop into bed at night too exhausted to pray. I even told myself that the Lord would forgive me because I was in such a busy time of my life.

The Lord does forgive many things, but the greater truth was that the Lord heard my cry for help and prepared to help me to help myself. After the meeting the bishop asked me to give a talk. It didn't seem like an answer to a prayer at the time, but it was. Through my preparation for this talk the Lord has answered my prayers and shown me how to strengthen myself spiritually.

The topic assigned to me was "The Book of Mormon and Christ." I immediately thought of my Book of Mormon Challenge blog I started in 2005. When I first heard of the challenge I decided to read the book and blog the experience as a kind of online testimony for my family. A blog is a journal hosted on the Internet.

President Hinckley promised Book of Mormon readers. "…there will come into your lives and into your homes an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord, a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to His commandments, and a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God." (Liahona and Ensign, Aug. 2005)
After reading the promised spiritual blessings, I set some goals
1. Read the Book of Mormon
2 Leave a written testimony of Christ for my family and future generations.
3. Regain inner peace
And I accomplished my goals by reading ten pages a day for two and a half months and wrote almost 4 times a week adding my testimony, and documenting how the promised blessings were being manifest in my life...

So, let's go back to the beginning of this talk: Two weeks ago, I was spiritually weak, alone, and discouraged, but thinking I don't have the time to do any thing about it. I was hoping God would send someone to rescue me…

He sent the Bishop with an assignment that has forced me to reread all 49 entries of my blog and see how when I was feeling alone, stressed out, and spiritually weak before, I turned to the Book of Mormon and received strength and encouragement, inspiration and direction. Rereading my blog reminded me of the wonderful spiritual strength I gained by reading and praying daily.

Now I know that no matter how busy I am, I must make time for these important steps. We all live busy lives. We all need the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in our lives. We all must take the time to pray meaningfully and study the scriptures daily if we are to the strength to live the gospel, follow Christ and bring his Atonement fully into our lives." end of talk

Today, as I began rereading the Book of Mormon again, I thought I would also blog through as I read. My goals are nearly the same as before: A testimony of Christ for my family, Increased spiritual power through daily scripture reading and meaningful personal prayer.

It's weird how my life keeps recycling the same themes. My husband flew in this week to help me manage Large Hulking Son (LHS). He's here in the States with me drug free and in college, but still managing to be rude, uncooperative, disruptive and emotionally abusive.

My reading schedule will be only 5 pages this time around since working full time and attending college keep me pretty busy. I hope to blog about 4 times weekly. I'm actually looking forward to it. Last time with my 10 pages per day of reading, there were lots of great scriptures I wasn't able to comment on. This time I hope to comment on some of those scriptures. So with all that said, and keeping with my personal quirk to start my reading in the middle of the book I started at 3 Nephi, page 406-410.

In this reading the first scripture that touched my heart was the account of Christ personally answering a prayer the night before he was to be born in Bethlehem.

[10] Now it came to pass that when Nephi, the son of Nephi, saw this wickedness of his people, his heart was exceedingly sorrowful.
[11] And it came to pass that he went out and bowed himself down upon the earth, and cried mightily to his God in behalf of his people, yea, those who were about to be destroyed because of their faith in the tradition of their fathers.
[12] And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord, all that day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying:
[13] Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfill all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.
[14] Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfill all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both of the Father and of the Son -- of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given.
[15] And it came to pass that the words which came unto Nephi were fulfilled, according as they had been spoken; for behold, at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; and the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came.


Even though his physical body was a fetus in Mary's womb, he was still acting as Jehovah on the eve of his physical birth. Here is further proof that Christ is the Son of God, and had "life unto himself."- he could not be contained by the womb or the tomb.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

<< ? | LDS Blogs | list >>