“He did deliver me from
bondage” p. 105, Day 1
1 N 7:16 These
people of my past who I feel hurt by certainly never laid their hands on me in
real intentional anger to hurt me. They
may have hurt me with their words by teasing, but I do not now believe that
they really intended to hurt me. I think
people who have been hurt, hurt others because they have been hurt. This is the downward cycle that Christ was solving
when He said to ‘love you enemies’. By
loving our enemies, it reverses this negative cycle, or at least is the seed of
it.
:18
Nephi seems to be a ‘glutton for punishment’. j/k . He is incredibly bold that the second after
the bands are loosed off his hands and wrists in answer to his prayer of faith
that he immediately stood again to talk to his brothers. He surly was without fear of them, regardless
of what they might do to them. But
because of Nephi’s faith and obedience, the Lord intervened and brought the
daughters to plead in his behalf- He opened the way before Nephi like a red sea
of deliverance. Look at the results of
that in v. 19 & 20. Holy cow! What a turn-around. One minute they go having hearts of stone and
wanting to kill Nephi, to being completely repentant to begging Nephi for
forgiveness and sincerely praying to God for forgiveness. I think that Lamen and Lemuel were not in
control of themselves at all. I think
they were under the power of the adversary because of their disobedience and he
had dominion over them. The “dark dot
voices” seemed to stir them up to anger and then they tried to kill Nephi
because that’s what Satan wanted them to do.
Then through the faith and obedience of others, the power of the
adversary was dispelled to allow Lamen and Lemuel to be under the influence of
the Spirit once again. They were tossed
about because they lacked inner conviction to obey. How sad.
In answer to her question,
I am hesitating to bring up my sins of the past because I have let them go upon
the alter and don’t want to re-hash what is dead. Let me think of something in my current life…
Possibly as a parent… Hum.
The thing that keeps coming to mind is one past offense that was not on
the “Inventory”. I guess I need to do
this now.
When I wrote letters in
the past to people who had offended me, it was really my intent and my desire
to bring them closer to me through forgiveness, but my words conveyed hurt and
pain which actually repelled them even more.
In several instances of learning to give feedback, I truly felt like I
was doing what the Spirit wanted me to do… but why would He lead me to do
something that would cause offense and separation? That makes no sense to me according to my
understanding of God and His dealings with us.
A thought that keeps returning is that we are here to learn ‘by our own
experience the good from the evil’, like Bruce Hafen was saying in that talk
the other day. I felt justified in my
actions because I thought I was following the Spirit. But now I need to follow the Spirit and clear
any offense that may exists between us from either direction. But a relationship is half and half. I can only do half of the work, and pray for
deliverance for the other half. I have
to have hope that sooner or later they will forgive and we will be reunited at
least in heart so that no ill feelings reside in our hearts and we both know
it.
The other possibility is
that because we are being separated by the hand of God like the Nephite and
Lamenite nations because I am trying to change the traditions of my fathers in
my own life, but I cannot do that if my life is so closely involved with all of
their current traditions. In this case, separation
is needed.
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