Stared them in the face

And it came to pass, because of the greatness of the number of the Lamanites the Nephites were in great fear, lest they should be overpowereed, and trodden down, and slain, and destroyed.
...and the judgments of God did stare them in the face.
For behold, they saw that the strength of the Lamanites was a great as their strength, even man for man. And thus had they fallen into this great transgression; yea, thus had they become weak, because of their transgression, in the space of not many years. (Helaman 4: 20, 23, 26)

A couple of subjects that occur to me here. One is the in-your-face statement is that the judgments of god stared them in the face. It seems to me that God's judgments are usually indirect, delayed, not obviously directly causal. For example, if I knew I would stub my toe if I got up after 7:30 am every morning, it would be easier for me to get up earlier than that. God doesn't work that way. The causal relationship can't be so direct, or there would be no room for faith.

Yet here we are with a group of people who have God's judgments staring them in their face. I guess this is probably obvious (the staring) to a man of God, who sees that this group of people are sewing unhappiness and getting it, then being unhappy about that. But maybe it's not so staringly obvious to the people who are causing themselves the problems.

But the book was written for us, now. God's judgments will also stare us in the face, the question is whether we allow ourselves to see the staring. I go to a friend of Julie's, a man who had greatness in his genes. Great parents, a kind and loving man, yet whenever I see him, he's drunk to the point of being barely able to walk or speak. This man's huge gifts are wasted - at least from my viewpoint - because he's always drunk. He will die, like others I've known, never knowing his gifts or finding his potential because he was drinking. Such a monumental potential, wasted. I know that's my opinion, and the facts may be somewhat different as viewed by the Lord, but all I can write about is what I see.

So here is his alcoholism staring him in the face. Does he recognize it? Maybe, maybe not. He would probably argue the merits of being able to drink. He might acknowledge that he shouldn't drink, but can't stop. Who knows? But in his case, the truth is certainly staring him in the face. To what degree he can acknowledge the staring, I don't know.

And people who chose "living for today", who find themselves living an empty life, same thing. I know certain people who do that, and charity to those people just goes toward further destroying their enabled lives. And across the nation, people wonder and are angry and hateful that some are "privileged" while they are not. I often think that it's more about not recognizing that your choices have created a lifestyle that you don't like. Then, rather than staring at our face in the mirror, we glare at others.

I didn't mean this to be about me being judgmental about others. I mean this to be my thoughts about me looking inward first when a part of my life isn't awesome. Maybe it's because the Lord is trying to stare me in the face to get my attention.

Then there's the thing about weakness. Guess that's something for another day.