Title of Liberty

In the Book of Mormon, in the book of Alma, there are a lot of wars that are going on between the people, it's not unlike what is going on in the world today.  There are so many things that you can say about war.  There are a lot of questions that you can ask.  Why is the war being fought, what benefits will the people gain after the war is won, is the war for a just cause, and the list can go on and on.  People are always quick to point fingers at each other as to who started it and why they had to retaliate.  I am not here to get into all of the politics that accompany a discussion that focuses on war. What I am asking is, what do you feel is worth defending?  What is your Title of Liberty? 

In Alma 46 there was a man, Amalickiah, that was making trouble in the land, he wanted to be king.  The chief commander of the armies of the Nephites was Moroni.  Although he was the leader of the army he was also a man of God, a man that believed there was more to fight for than just a position or a section of land.  When he learned of things that Amalickiah was doing he got angry.  The following verses in Alma 46 tells us what he did:

 11 And now it came to pass that when Moroni, who was the chief commander of the armies of the Nephites, had heard of these dissensions, he was angry with Amalickiah.

 12 And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole.

Moroni was reminding them why they were fighting, what they were defending.  The rest of the chapter goes on to say that he went and took this Title of Liberty throughout the land to show and remind the people of all that they had promised to defend.  In verse 21 is states, 

"...the people came running together with their armor girded about their loins, rending their garments in token, or as a covenant, that they would not forsake the Lord their God..."

As stated above, what is your Title of Liberty?  What righteous thing are you fighting for?  I am not even really talking about an actual, physical war.  What are you standing up for or against?  My Title of Liberty would say something pretty close to Moroni's.  I go throughout my day trying to set the example to others that we need to make choices that will benefit, defend, and strengthen the things that we hold most dear.  As long as the cause is a righteous one, God will help us succeed in protecting that which is most dear.  I am not stating that life will be perfect or that nothing bad will happen.  I am just wanting everyone to know that we are not alone in this life here on Earth and that there are things that are worth fighting for and defending.  

Prayers Are Our Link To God

I am excited to have started another semester in the Pathway Program.  In my religion class we will now be covering the rest of the books of the Book of Mormon.  We will be going from Alma 30 - Moroni 10.  One of the topics that we covered in this week's class is prayer.  Prayer has always been one of my favorite topics to study and discuss.  I feel that there are so many people that don't understand what prayer is.

Prayer is a way that we communicate to God, it's our link to him.  Our Heavenly Father has always wanted us to communicate or talk to him.  He wants to know about everything that is going on in our lives.  My daughter, who is 8, has asked me, "Why do we need to talk to God and tell him about our day if he already knows everything that is going on?".  It is a good question. What I tell her is that it's like when I am watching her and her sisters playing outside through our kitchen window.  I have seen everything that has gone on.  I know that you have hit the ball over the fence, that you pushed your sister, or that you were laughing as you were yelling into the wind, but I want to hear from you what your favorite part of the day was.  What will you always remember about the afternoon outside? She understood what I was saying and she has actually wanted to say a prayer every night since that discussion.

I talk to Heavenly Father throughout the day. I am a stay at home mom and so it's easy for me to pray out loud, but when I am out and about I am holding full conversations in my head with Him.  I use respectful words to address him like "thee" and "thou", but I talk to him like he is right next to me.  I seek his counsel, I vent to him, I bring my heavy heart to him when I am burden with the weight of the world, and I sometimes just cry and am comforted in the knowledge that there is someone there with me as tears are rolling down my face.  We are taught in the Book of Mormon in Alma 34:27,  by a missionary, Amulek, when we should pray: 

 27 Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.

What I think is important for people to remember is that God is there when were are frustrated, stressed, mad, and going through a tough trail, but he is also there waiting for us to bring to him our joys and things that we are thankful for.

I thank him for a breeze that comes when I am mowing the lawn and I am dying because it's so hot.  I thank him for one of my favorite songs coming on the radio when I am cranky.  I thank him that many of the things on my grocery list are on sale on a week that the food budget is a bit tight.  God is mindful of all of us and of all that we are going through.  I hope that we all just remember that prayer is powerful, it works, God is listening.  All we need to do is to start talking to our Creator, our Father, and our Friend and he will be there listening and ready to respond. 

Letting Your Voice Be Heard

               


The freedom of  speech that we have in this country is truly a powerful thing.  Something that is learned from reading The Book of Mormon, and from studying the history of the world, is that having a king is only good when they are good and righteous.  It just takes one bad king to make life miserable for all. 

There comes a time in The Book of Mormon when they forgo having a king and set up the government with a chief judge.  
In Mosiah 29:25,
 "Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord."

As you read farther in chapter 29 you find why they set up the judges and how they actually set up the chief judge.  They then have higher and lower judges to keep each other in check.  It is very much like our president with the different branches of government to keep him in check. For class, I watched a video and in it it was said that it is safer when everyone participates in the government.  When everyone participates we aren't letting just a few people decide our fate.  We should use our agency, or the right to choose, to determine who will lead our country in a proper manner. 

The government in The United States of America is put to full use when we the people, not just some, but all the people vote and use their voices to express their opinions.  I know that it isn't always easy to get to the polls and to vote.  Having children makes it hard for you and your spouse to go at the same time.  It's like a revolving door at our house, one votes, comes home and then the other one flies out the door.  It made not be easy for me, but I do it so that I can say that I let my voice heard. 

I know that many men risked their lives to give us the freedoms that we have today.  I do not want the founding fathers of this country to know that I took their sacrifice lightly.  I am proud to be an American and with that comes the right to vote.  I suggest that we take advantage of that and get to the polls during election time. 

Serving Others

With all of the terrorist attacks, wars, corrupt governments, and everything else that is going on in the world, it is hard to stay positive and not want to give up on humanity.  Where you have to change your focus to is to all of the service and good things that humanity is doing for each other.  

Something that we covered in our lesson this week was that of service.  Not just any service, but doing the Lord's service. In The Book of Mormon, there was a king named Benjamin that was the ultimate example of service.  He spent his days not only being their king, but a man that worked along side his people and served them.  He wants us, though, to remember who we are really serving when we serve each other.  He is quoted in the book of Mosiah chapter 2 verses 16-17 saying: 
"16  Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I had spent my days in your service, I do not desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God.
17  And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."  

As one that has been through some hard times, I know that there are people out there that are truly God's angels here on Earth.  Me, my husband, and my children were living in Houston, TX at the time that Hurricane Ike had hit.  We were far enough inland that we didn't have to evacuate, but we still didn't know what we were going to face.  We decided not to evacuate and to stick it out.  It was a good thing that we stayed.  Our roof started leaking early on and were able to deal with some of the water that was coming in, but not all of it.  Because of the water that had come in, we ended up with some interior damage.  We also had a huge pine tree in our front yard that, thankfully, fell the opposite way of our home.  There were many, many people that got hit a lot worse than we did, but we were still poor college students that really didn't have the means to make up the difference of what the insurance didn't cover.

After that horrible event, I saw what humanity could really do, how good people really were.  Our neighborhood came together and had huge block parties so, that we could all share the food that was going to go bad since all of our power was out.  Our neighbors got to work and cut up our 30 ft. pine tree that was laying in our front yard.  Members of our church took turns fixing each others roofs, yards, dry wall, carpets, and all of the damage that occurred to our homes.  Charity was being shown all over Houston and I could feel the Lord's love.  

It was not a fun thing to go through and I wish that we wouldn't have had to deal with all of the headaches that followed.  I am glad that I was there though because I got to see, first hand, that there is good in the world.  We all bore each others burdens the days and months that followed that hurricane. There was no rich and poor, black or white, or any other divisions, there was just the pure love of Christ being shown.  The main thing that I got to see, first hand, there in Houston, TX was service.

Being Deceived and Distracted

I am currently in week 7 for the religion class that I have created this blog for.  The semester is half way over and I can't believe it.  This class is part of a program that is to slowly get your feet wet as far as going back to college is concerned.  It's been quite the eye opening experience for me of how fast the time really can go and how much work there is to do for a college level course.  I feel that I have already learned so much about not only myself, but also The Book of Mormon.

In this week's lesson a topic that was discussed was one that I needed when I was younger and especially need now as I am trying to raise my three daughters.  The topic is that of being deceived by Satan.  I know that there will be some of you that roll your eyes at the mention of this topic and will say that I shouldn't be such a prude, that we shouldn't really worry about this, or that I am a religious fanatic for even wanting to mention this.  All of these thoughts and feelings are actually things that Satan uses to distract us from focusing on the real prize and that is to return to our Heavenly Father, to return to Heaven.   

In The Book of Mormon, you'll find that in the book of 2 Nephi chapter 28 verse 22 the prophet Nephi is speaking.  He tells us that Satan is trying to get us to believe the very things that you just wanted to say to me.  "And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none-and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance." 
 
More and more today people are losing their faith in God or are all together giving up on the notion that there is a supreme being that governs us.  Because they don't believe that there is a God there isn't going to be his opposite, Satan.  Those who still want to believe in God, but don't want to be constrained, at the moment, by the commandments that he has given will say just what Nephi had prophesied of in 2 Nephi 28:7-8:
"Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us.  
And there shall also be many which shall say:  Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God-he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little...and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God."

I know that there is so much going on in the world today and it's hard to stay focused on the prize, to return back to our Heavenly Father.  It is hard to be in the world, but to not be a part of it.  We can't put ourselves in a bubble and stay there until we die and Heavenly Father wouldn't want us to.  He wants us to live and to be happy, but we just need to make good choices.  We can't let ourselves be distracted by the little every day things that will take our focus off of the prize.  I am not trying to or going to tell you what is right and wrong.

I guess the point of this post is to help me and those who read this to remember that Heaven is real.  If Heaven is real then Satan is as well.  If Satan is real then we need to think more about the choices that we make and where those choices will ultimately lead us.  Let's not be deceived and distracted by the choices that are the easiest or the most appealing.  I am hoping that I keep my eye on the prize and that is to get back to my home in Heaven, back to my Heavenly Father.   
 

Here we go, my first post

I have created this blog to share my thoughts and feelings about the things that I am learning in a religion class that I am currently taking.  We are studying a section of The Book of Mormon.  We will be starting from the beginning of the book and then studying through to Alma chapter 29.  

For those who are not familiar with The Book of Mormon, it is another testament of Jesus Christ.  It is another book of scripture that is to be used in conjunction with The Bible and other books of scriptures.  It contains the writings of ancient prophets that are located in the Americas from about 600 B.C. to about 421 A.D.  There is so much to be said about this dear book and I have neither the time or the space on this blog to go into great depth about it.

This is the fifth lesson for the class and already we have covered many topics.  We are not only learning about The Book of Mormon and really studying what the prophets have spoken.  We are also learning different styles of how to study the text there.  We have learned study skills anywhere from how to learn more about the settings of the time and places in the chapters to how to look for the cause and effect of the prophesies of the prophets.  

What I want to share from this week's lesson is about the topic of agency.  There is a lot going on in the world today and much of it centers around the agency that we have.  I know that as I was growing up I wanted to be an adult so very badly.  It seemed like they had all of the fun.  They got to choose how late they would stay up or how big of a bowl of ice cream they would have.  I never got that choice, it seemed like I was told how and when to do everything.

Now being an adult I sometimes wish that I was a child again and that I didn't have to make so many choices.  To me it can be a bit overwhelming the amount of things that we have to choose to do or not do.   What I have learned as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that I can narrow down how many choices I will actually have to make throughout my life.  There are some decisions that you only have to make once and so, when they come up again you already know what the answer will be.  An example is that as a youth I chose that I would follow the counsel of the Lord and not drink alcohol or smoke tobacco.  I made up my mind once and then as I have been offered it throughout my life I already know what the answer would and will be.  

Seeing that this post is getting to be really long I am just going to end it will this.  There are many choices to be made, but as we try to do what our Heavenly Father wants us to do there really aren't as many choices to make as we previously thought.  There is only one way to return to our Heavenly Father and our choices need to align in such a way that we are worthy to do so.  The prophet Nephi stated in 2 Nephi 9:41:

"O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name."

The narrow path that we need to get and stay on can be accomplished by choosing to follow his commandments.  I know that it's worth all of the effort that it takes to get and stay there.