stir them up unto remembrance

So it was only a couple of days ago that I did my lesson to the high priests group. It was about  a talk from many people's favorite speaker at general conference: Elder Uchtdorf. I might have gotten bogged down in the concept, but it was a subject that resonated with the high priests - probably because the concept I was putting to them was new at best and off-putting to some of them.

The idea that I proposed was that God is not a punisher. He blesses us, and he puts commandments forward that he knows will improve us and improve our happiness if we follow. But the idea is that he doesn't punish us for not following the commandments - we do that to ourselves by choosing against getting the blessing.

Today's reading in Mosiah 1 adds light to that concept: Verse 17 "...and therefore they were smitten with famine and sore afflictions, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty".

First, I always appreciate the way the Lord is intentionally vague. "They were smitten with..." is like the "be damned" phrase. We all want to immediately jump to the assumption that the Lord does the smiting and the damning, but it doesn't say that in the phrase. It just says it gets done. Who does that then? Satan? The person? The Lord? That wisdom is not addressed in this scripture and most others, but it does indicate the Lord's motives. They are "...to stir them up in remembrance of their duty".

So sometimes the Lord causes or allows famine and afflictions out of an act of love. He hopes at least that when things start to go badly, that we'll take that as an opportunity to re-evaluate our lives.

And I ran out of time to finish this thought. On to my day.