For My Profit and Learning

Sometimes I feel the scriptures are the social media versions of prophets' lives, carefully curated to capture the highlights of their experiences and teachings. We don't see the times when prophets  were bored, or yelled at their kids. Not every day was as meaningful as the few they recorded, neither were their lives as inevitable as they seem to us reading about them thousands of years later. For this reason I treasure the hints and allusions that render them human, and give insight into the rest of their lives. In this beautiful and humanizing passage, we glimpse the intensity of Nephi's struggle with anger, sorrow, temptation, and sin. The fact that the same man who saw visions, performed miracles, and lived a life of astonishing faith also had cause to weep for his failings gives me hope and helps me be more kind to myself. In his BYU Forum address " The Glorious Cause of America ", David  McCullough  captured this idea beautifully:   "History wa

Lehi prophesied about the restoration of Christ's church in modern times, The Book of Mormon, and the role of Joseph Smith. For much of my youth as a member of the church, my attitude toward Joseph Smith was indifferent or dismissive. While I had clear and powerful feelings about the reality and divinity of Jesus Christ, my attitude toward Joseph Smith, the prophet who restored His church, was ambivalent. Sure I accepted that Joseph was called of God to re-establish the church, but I deliberately de-emphasized the importance of his role. I saw him as just another prophet among prophets. De-emphasizing Joseph Smith helped me to downplay some of the weird aspects of Mormonism, and avoid the historical complexity of the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was also hyper-vigilant to avoid any hero-worship of Joseph Smith, and was sensitive to criticisms of the church that would label it as non-Christian. As a missionary in Taiwan, however, I

In recounting the creation of Adam and Eve, Lehi teaches his sons about our ability to discern and choose between good and evil. Often we think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want. In fact, we have always had our own free will to choose what we believe, say and do (good, bad, or ugly). But Lehi explains the role of Christ is securing our agency,  the ability to make good choices, and clarifies that while  conflict, contradiction and opposition are everywhere, and enable us to learn and grow, real freedom is choosing to follow God.  "And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever , knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon" (2 Nephi 2:26). We live in an imperfect world. We are fallible and our bodies are fragile. In this fallen condition there are many choices that are not available to us without