After reading 1 Nephi 12 I decided that visions might be a heavy burden to hold. When I usually think of visions I think of them as great things that would increase my faith and help me see things clearly. But as Nephi continues to be shown the mysteries of God he ends up seeing his seed overpowered by the seed of his brethren because of their pride and the tempations of the devil(vs.19). He must have felt awful to see that after all he is doing, that his seed would fall because of their pride. I think I would feel panic and wonder what I could do to change that. I love happy endings and I think a vision like that would be devastating. What would you do if you received a vision of where your child's future ended up and it wasn't in righteousness? Would you believe it? Would you lose faith or motivation? I don't know what I would do, but I think I would feel so much panic and sorrow. I am glad that I haven't been blessed with gifts of visions. I don't think I would want to know or see any of that ahead of time. I believe in happy endings and that all will be ok as we strive to live in faith and continually seek the Lord's will. Is that cheesy or what...but it's true. I guess it just reaffirms that we cannot control others' decisions and all we can do is teach, love and pray like crazy.
Isn't it interesting that something as simple as pride can make you fall. It is powerful enough to not make only one person fall, but a whole "people". How scary is that? Pride is such a part of our lives. It so easily creeps in and is so hard to shove out. I hate that. Its like trying to build muscles or be toned. You work so hard to get a muscle and soon as you relax a bit it is half way gone. I can work so hard to get rid of my stupid pride and as soon as I am feeling ok and relax a little it quickly creeps back in. I hate pride. Sometimes it feels fun to be a bit prideful...is that weird to say...but I know it is like a virus or a nasty infection. If we don't take care of it it will multiply quickly.
I know I have mentioned before that I don't often think about my posterity. I think of my children, but since my oldest is 4 I don't think much beyond that point. It is important from reading this that we should think of our posterity. Leave something for them to hang on to and build faith upon just in case their parents mess up. It is probably even important to pray for our posterity especially since they will live in tougher times than us. I think today I will think more on my posterity and what I might do for them. I am not sure what would be good, but leaving something of a journal, or lessons on our faith or something would be smart. Aren't we lucky to have records and journals from the pioneers to build our faith on, and the prophets of old? Maybe we need to think about who we might be to the future or who the Lord wants us to be?
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I think that it's still important to consider the agency of man. Certainly, what Nephi saw was real; but does that mean that it had to happen the way he saw it? Often, it seems, visions are given as warnings: if you don't do this (or you do that), then this will happen... Maybe Nephi's was that kind of vision. After all, Lehi saw his vision of the tree of life and exhorted his two older children to change - as though they could change! It's possible Lehi actually believed his children could change. So are visions just warnings? If they weren't, would that mean that we don't really have agency?
ReplyDeleteI love these insights Maggie!!! Talk about leaving something worthwhile for your posterity--this blog is a treasure!! I'm learning so much from you!
ReplyDeleteYou are so sweet Heather. Somehow I missed this comment and just was reading back at what I have been learning. Thanks so much.
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