2 Nephi 8 - God will take care of Zion; trust in God more than man

God wants to have a set of people (as large as possible) that follow him and who He can protect.

15 But I am the Lord thy God, whose ^awaves roared; the Lord of Hosts is my name.

16 And I have ^aput my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion: Behold, thou art my ^bpeople.

It's important that we don't focus on fearing men more than we fear God:

12 ^aI am he; yea, I am he that comforteth you. Behold, who art thou, that thou shouldst be ^bafraid of man, who shall die, and of the son of man, who shall be made like unto ^cgrass?

13 And ^aforgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath ^bstretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, and hast feared continually every day, because of the fury of the ^coppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?

Joseph Smith was told the same thing after the incident with the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript that were lost. D.C. 3:

7 For, behold, you should not have ^afeared man more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and ^bdespise his words—

8 Yet you should have been faithful; and he would have extended his arm and ^asupported you against all the fiery ^bdarts of the^cadversary; and he would have been with you in every time of^dtrouble.

Purpose of Life - to understand God's role and become little children again

My friend and I were talking about how being a kid means you don't have any worries or responsibility and that all of our responsibility is what wears on us many times. I agreed with this whole-heartedly.

An interesting question though is why? Why do kids have such an easy life? Will we have an easy life at some point like they do? In the post-mortal world, I believe our lives will be very similar to our kids' lives now, although we will still have responsibilities.

Consider this verse about the spirit world in Alma 40:

12And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of ^ahappiness, which is called^bparadise, a state of rest, a state of ^cpeace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow.

Now we also know that when we die there is a lot of work for us to still do. When Jesus died, he went and organized his missionary work in the spirit world so that missionaries (members of the church when they were alive) could teach the gospel to those who did not accept it while alive. See D.C. 138 and also Pres. Eyring's talk in April 2005. So, we're still going to have responsibility and work after we die. So why will it be a state of rest and peace?

I think it's because we'll be much closer to heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Just like my kids are not worried about things in part because they don't know any better but in part because they have an implicit trust in their parents, when we are closer to God and Jesus Christ and know all the things they are doing to help us and take care of us, we will no longer worry about things like we do. In that way, once we see our parents again, we will become like little children. Interestingly, this life seems to be a time where God gives us the opportunity to be as much like him as we can: we have responsibility, it's hard for us to see exactly how involved he is, etc. Then, if we pass this life well, we'll get to go back to him, but this time having a great respect for all he does since we've tried doing it ourselves. This will likely make us act like little children again in the sense that we are very trusting in our heavenly Father (and Jesus) and his ability to take care of things. The difference between our acting as children in the pre-mortal vs. the post-mortal life is that in the post-mortal life we'll have a much greater understanding of how hard a job heavenly Father has after we have tried to be autonomous in this life. He's given us a perfect environment to learn to be like him and also to come to respect him.

In this context, consider the following verses from Matthew 11:

28¶^aCome unto me, all ye that ^blabour and are heavy laden, and I will give you ^crest.

29Take my ^ayoke upon you, and ^blearn of me; for I am ^cmeek and^dlowly in ^eheart: and ye shall find ^frest unto your souls.

It is clear that when we try to come under the watchful care of Jesus in this life, he will also comfort and sustain us. It's not that our pressures and responsibilities will go away; instead, it will be that we completely trust that Jesus will take care of us. We will still have work to do in the post-mortal life, but we'll trust that heavenly Father and Jesus will always be there to take care of things and make sure all will turn out well in the end. We will once again become like little children.

Have a great day.

Trust in God then Go and Do

So, I taught in EQ today and it didn't go that great. I didn't prepare well enough (i.e., I didn't discuss it with Jamie - she would have helped me focus thoughts better), I didn't teach anything particularly insightful, and I didn't use enough or really any scriptures. Lots of stories, not enough scriptures. Bad move. (I actually finished the lesson by saying, "sorry I didn't do well enough" - it's true. Those Elders deserved a better lesson to help them in some way in their lives.)

The lesson was on Pres. Eyring's talk which was excellent. The title of the talk was "Trust in God, then Go and Do.'' The purpose was to increase our trust in God and in his servants, the prophets.

I believe those guys 100%. Everything I have seen from them in my limited interactions with them or those who are close to them makes me believe their words. Additionally, I know God answers prayers. That's been made very clear to me.

Here's a verse I like regarding trusting in God.

Alma 58:37

But, behold, it mattereth not—we trust God will deliver us, notwithstanding the weakness of our armies, yea, and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies.

Those strippling warriors sure trust in God. I think it's because of the experiences they had had earlier made it clear to them that they should trust in Him. They mention in particular that they knew their mothers knew God would deliver them. This is an interesting point. I believe true faith is having enough faith that others' actions are influenced by you. The strippling warriors were clearly influenced by their mothers. Jamie and I were talking with some new friends of ours tonight, and I asked them how they gained testimonies of the church. Both of them spoke about how good their families were. She had a family that was very committed to the church. They read scriptures every day and prayed every day as a family, and she often heard her dad bear testimony. This all helped a testimony develop along with her time really diligently studying the scriptures while her future husband was on his mission. He said that there was a lot of trust and love in his family, and he thought, "if they're so great and I trust them so much, I'm pretty sure there's something to this church thing." I really love both of their comments. I hope to have a family in which our kids trust us and can be certain that the church is true because it is so obvious that it affects our lives for good. (I also want my kids to ask questions and figure it out on their own, but these two desires can both exist.)

Anyway, I hope I trust in God. He has always come through for me in every way. I also believe it's only if I stop trusting in him that the miracles will cease (as described in the following verse.)

Mormon 9:20

And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust.

Have a good week.