Sought me diligently

Yesterday I came across two gold nuggets and wrote about one of them. Today I was planning to write about the other, but without the reading first, it feels like I'm not prepared to write. I had to re-read a section before things started to come back.

Still in 1 Nephi 2, and we're researching the mysteries of the Lord.We have Nephi seeking to understand the dream his father had. There is a huge lesson here: we don't have to just accept the words of a man we know to be a prophet of the Lord.

Religion outsiders would call it blind faith, but I understand better what's happening. If, say, in a corporation the CFO comes to you and says that there is enough budget to build a store in Wichita, then you have reason to believe that there is enough money to do so. If you also respect the man who is the CFO, and find him to be an honorable man who knows his job and is not prone to false statements, then you have more reason to believe what he says. All that is more than adequate reason to believe that CFO's statements. This is similar to believing what a prophet says. That's one level of trust - there are many.

There would be believing that a person is of high integrity, and so you believe his words. That's a level. Then there is having had personal confirmation from the Lord - or in the case of the business the owner and CEO, confirming that this person is his trusted and direct representative. That's another level. But Nephi shows that it can go further. A person can go directly to the Lord for confirmation of what the prophets are saying. This is welcomed and encouraged in our church, and it provides much greater depth and growth to the individual seeking the personal confirmation.

Getting personal confirmation from the Lord? That would be kind of awesome. Can you do that? How?

Glad you asked. This is what Nephi shows us in these verses:

1 Nephi  2:16 "...also having great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me..."

1 Nephi 2:19 "... Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart..."

Looks to me like a person has to first have great desires. Curiosity doesn't cut it. I don't know to what extent worthiness may fit in, but I suspect that there's also a trust issue between the Lord and us that goes both ways: if he doesn't trust us to honor and use any gift he provides, he'll probably refrain from giving it. I've been down that road before in previous posts so I won't duplicate that here.

Then the simplicity kicks in. Nephi cried. He asked. I'm not going to go down the road of identifying the difference between crying and asking, but there's a difference. Next, the recipe is pretty simple. The Lord visited. The pathway is so simple: desire, ask, receive. The Lord certainly didn't put in any extra roadblocks on that recipe. Simple? Yeah. It doesn't get more simple than that.

So why doesn't every meth addict who beats and starves his wife and children receive similar treatment from the Lord? Couldn't he benefit from having a heavenly messenger visit him after he comes down from the latest meth high? Maybe they could answer his question about Joseph Smith's 3rd wife's brother's witch obsession. Yeah - I made that up.

That could be answered in verse 19. Faith, seeking diligently, and lowliness of heart. This goes back to my discussion above. A gift from the Lord must be valued by the receiver. If the Lord knows we won't value and develop the gift, then receiving it would be a curse upon us and we'd have to answer for it on judgment day. The Lord wouldn't do that to us.

Another example: say we have a person wants a gift or vision from the Lord because he wants to up his power level, or so he can add another bullet point to his spiritual resume. No lowliness of heart. Probably seeking less than diligently. And if he's seeking that knowledge so he can deliver it in an uppity "I'm above you because I know this" way, he'll never gain that knowledge from the Lord. Or maybe he'll just not gain further knowledge - I don't know - that kind of stuff is up to the Lord of course, and will be very individual specific.

The point here, I guess as I un-delve from the weeds, is that getting information from the Lord is as easy as the Lord can make it. We must be in a place where the Lord can trust us with the gift we request, then we have to decide what we want, and ask for it. It's that simple. I think some gifts are even more simple than that. We are born with some gifts that we didn't even have to ask for in this life. Being that now that we're all here, all we have to do is follow the simple recipe to receive more.

May we all do so. And yes, He's waiting.

#LDS
#scripture
#greatness
#giftsandguides
#1Nephi2:19