So what if there was a guy named Lehi that saw visions? Why do I care?
It's not so important that there was a guy named Lehi. It's important that he followed the commandments of God.
It's important that he was taught what was going to happen, so that he knew why he needed to call the people to repentance. He needed to know why it was so desperate.
It wouldn't be a good idea, though, for God to simply come down and tell the people, "I'm going to send the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem if you don't repent!" That's kind of like your parents telling you that they're going to demolish your room from their house if you don't clean it up. You are going to clean your room whether you want to or not.
The reason that God gives us prophets is because we need to choose for ourselves, and to experience the consequences of our choices. That is the only way we can learn and grow.
I love Lehi, though, and his amazing act of faith!
How does this story relate to you? What did you learn from it?
Monday, March 17, 2014
In the Beginning- Wait, this is the Book of Mormon
I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents...
The first 8 words in the Book of Mormon are perhaps the most recognizable statement in all of Mormondom. Or rather, we've started reading the Book of Mormon way more times than we have actually finished it. Anyways...
My story begins in the far off country of Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of King Zedekiah, King of Judah, around the year 600 BC, about the same time as the good prophet, Jeremiah. Jeremiah wasn't the only prophet. God was calling many prophets to preach repentance to the people. They had become so wicked. It was dangerous to be called to be a prophet. The wicked people wouldn't listen, and more often than not, God's servants were stoned and rejected because of the sinful people.
There was a man living at this time named Lehi. Lehi is my father. He was a righteous man, born and raised in the city of Jerusalem. He loved the people. These were his friends and family and neighbors, but he knew they were wicked. He heard the calls of the prophets in the streets, the shouts of "return to your God!" and "repent!" The prophecies made him thoughtful, wanting to know how he could help, how he could help his friends and family and neighbors return to righteousness. He knew how happy he was, and he wanted so many others to have that happiness and not to be drug down by that guilt and unhappiness that came from sin. Not knowing what else to do, he prayed for the people in Jerusalem.
God heard his prayer, and all of a sudden, a pillar of fire appeared on a rock in front of him, showing many things. After the fire left, Lehi found himself shaking, and looking around, he made his way home.
He barely made it to his home and to his bed before he collapsed over it, exhausted from the spiritual experience. The first spiritual experience was not to be his last.
As he laid on his bed, thinking about all of the things that he had seen, he was given another vision.
He saw God sitting on a glorious throne. All around Him were brilliant angels singing praises to God, worshipping Him.
Lehi's attention was then drawn away to a lustrous being who was brighter than anything he had ever seen. The man was followed by twelve other beings, brighter than the starts in the heavens. These men descended to Lehi, and they presented a book.
He began to read, and as the words started to fill his head--"Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations!"--the Spirit filled him. The words were terrifying. The book spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, that great city that Lehi had always lived, the home of the Jews, and it was to be destroyed by Babylonians!
Lehi did not see it this way. He recognized God's purposes, and he praised God. When he awoke and told me about it, all he could say were statements like "Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish!"
Lehi praised God a lot after he had had the vision. He told me a lot of his visions and revelations, but I know he keeps a very good journal, a very good record of what God reveals to him, so I won't tell you all of what he shared with me. I'm only making an abridgement, or a summary of my father, Lehi's words.
After he had received these amazing visions, he went into streets of Jerusalem and started
prophesying and crying repentance to the people. He scared my mother, Sariah. He scared us, my brothers and I, too. We had seen what others had done to prophets. There was a lot of prayer in our home while my father prophesied in the streets. He told of his dreams and visions and of the coming of the Messiah. The people didn't listen to him, just like they didn't listen to the other prophets.
I do know that God protected him, though. He came home to us every night. I know that God gives us, His children, so many tender mercies.
To read the actual story, go here 1 Nephi 1.
So why was this story included in the Book of Mormon? So What?
The first 8 words in the Book of Mormon are perhaps the most recognizable statement in all of Mormondom. Or rather, we've started reading the Book of Mormon way more times than we have actually finished it. Anyways...
The First Book of Nephi
In the words of Nephi:
Chapter 1My story begins in the far off country of Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of King Zedekiah, King of Judah, around the year 600 BC, about the same time as the good prophet, Jeremiah. Jeremiah wasn't the only prophet. God was calling many prophets to preach repentance to the people. They had become so wicked. It was dangerous to be called to be a prophet. The wicked people wouldn't listen, and more often than not, God's servants were stoned and rejected because of the sinful people.
There was a man living at this time named Lehi. Lehi is my father. He was a righteous man, born and raised in the city of Jerusalem. He loved the people. These were his friends and family and neighbors, but he knew they were wicked. He heard the calls of the prophets in the streets, the shouts of "return to your God!" and "repent!" The prophecies made him thoughtful, wanting to know how he could help, how he could help his friends and family and neighbors return to righteousness. He knew how happy he was, and he wanted so many others to have that happiness and not to be drug down by that guilt and unhappiness that came from sin. Not knowing what else to do, he prayed for the people in Jerusalem.
God heard his prayer, and all of a sudden, a pillar of fire appeared on a rock in front of him, showing many things. After the fire left, Lehi found himself shaking, and looking around, he made his way home.
He barely made it to his home and to his bed before he collapsed over it, exhausted from the spiritual experience. The first spiritual experience was not to be his last.
As he laid on his bed, thinking about all of the things that he had seen, he was given another vision.
He saw God sitting on a glorious throne. All around Him were brilliant angels singing praises to God, worshipping Him.
Lehi's attention was then drawn away to a lustrous being who was brighter than anything he had ever seen. The man was followed by twelve other beings, brighter than the starts in the heavens. These men descended to Lehi, and they presented a book.
He began to read, and as the words started to fill his head--"Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations!"--the Spirit filled him. The words were terrifying. The book spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, that great city that Lehi had always lived, the home of the Jews, and it was to be destroyed by Babylonians!
Lehi did not see it this way. He recognized God's purposes, and he praised God. When he awoke and told me about it, all he could say were statements like "Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish!"
Lehi praised God a lot after he had had the vision. He told me a lot of his visions and revelations, but I know he keeps a very good journal, a very good record of what God reveals to him, so I won't tell you all of what he shared with me. I'm only making an abridgement, or a summary of my father, Lehi's words.
After he had received these amazing visions, he went into streets of Jerusalem and started
 |
| Lehi Prophesying to the People of Jerusalem (Gospel Art Book [2009], no. 67) |
I do know that God protected him, though. He came home to us every night. I know that God gives us, His children, so many tender mercies.
To read the actual story, go here 1 Nephi 1.
So why was this story included in the Book of Mormon? So What?
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
What is This? Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?
Well, first off, this is a blog.
I don't know who you are yet, but I can tell you who I am. I'm Sister Kyrie Gladwell. I'm a 20 something year old girl. I'm the oldest, and I love my little siblings, I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ(AKA the Mormon church), and I am now writing a blog. I love to write. I absolutely adore to write. I love music and art and TV and movies and books and video games and marching band and color guard and English classes and math and family and Jesus.
Why am I here? As for you, you probably clicked on a link somewhere, maybe Googled it. You might have seen it on Facebook. I might've asked you to look it up. I don't know why you're here.
I'm here because when a man and a woman love each other very much... Wait, I'm a missionary. We are here because God is our Heavenly Father and He loves us very much, and we wanted to become like Him, but we needed to get a body first and be tested, so Earth was created, and we received bodies, and now we're here to learn and to grow and to make our way back to our Heavenly Father.
Ummm...That didn't answer your question, did it? Well, I'm here in the California Anaheim Mission writing a blog because I volunteered to serve a mission to invite others to come unto Christ and to learn of God's plan for them. So here I am, doing just that, inviting others to come unto Christ.
What am I doing? You are reading my blog.
What I'm doing is writing the blog. Okay, no, this blog is actually something I've wanted to do for a long time. So, I'm pretty sure everyone's heard of the Bible. Most people have heard of the Book of Mormon(if you haven't, don't worry, I'll explain it later). These books contain stories of people. You probably didn't know that. These were people. They lived a really long time ago, several thousand years ago. Well, you have a story, and I have a story, and these people in these dusty books that you might never pull out to look at have stories too. I wanted to share these stories with everyone. I know that it's kind of hard to understand what the books are saying though sometimes. There's a lot of thees and thous and thines. Sometimes, you just have no idea what you just read. That happens to me a lot, too.
Just to make it clear, I'm not going to rewrite the Bible, and I'm not going to rewrite the Book of Mormon. That's not my purpose. What I'm doing is sharing the stories in an easy to understand way and talking about how these stories apply to us. If you think about it, there has to be some reason that these stories were written down. There has to be some reason that they somehow managed to last through millennia for us to read today.
And these stories apply to every single one of us. There were all sorts of different people in all different walks of life doing all sorts of different things.
Thanks for reading,
Sis. G
Same post is also here
I don't know who you are yet, but I can tell you who I am. I'm Sister Kyrie Gladwell. I'm a 20 something year old girl. I'm the oldest, and I love my little siblings, I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ(AKA the Mormon church), and I am now writing a blog. I love to write. I absolutely adore to write. I love music and art and TV and movies and books and video games and marching band and color guard and English classes and math and family and Jesus.
Why am I here? As for you, you probably clicked on a link somewhere, maybe Googled it. You might have seen it on Facebook. I might've asked you to look it up. I don't know why you're here.
I'm here because when a man and a woman love each other very much... Wait, I'm a missionary. We are here because God is our Heavenly Father and He loves us very much, and we wanted to become like Him, but we needed to get a body first and be tested, so Earth was created, and we received bodies, and now we're here to learn and to grow and to make our way back to our Heavenly Father.
Ummm...That didn't answer your question, did it? Well, I'm here in the California Anaheim Mission writing a blog because I volunteered to serve a mission to invite others to come unto Christ and to learn of God's plan for them. So here I am, doing just that, inviting others to come unto Christ.
What am I doing? You are reading my blog.
What I'm doing is writing the blog. Okay, no, this blog is actually something I've wanted to do for a long time. So, I'm pretty sure everyone's heard of the Bible. Most people have heard of the Book of Mormon(if you haven't, don't worry, I'll explain it later). These books contain stories of people. You probably didn't know that. These were people. They lived a really long time ago, several thousand years ago. Well, you have a story, and I have a story, and these people in these dusty books that you might never pull out to look at have stories too. I wanted to share these stories with everyone. I know that it's kind of hard to understand what the books are saying though sometimes. There's a lot of thees and thous and thines. Sometimes, you just have no idea what you just read. That happens to me a lot, too.
Just to make it clear, I'm not going to rewrite the Bible, and I'm not going to rewrite the Book of Mormon. That's not my purpose. What I'm doing is sharing the stories in an easy to understand way and talking about how these stories apply to us. If you think about it, there has to be some reason that these stories were written down. There has to be some reason that they somehow managed to last through millennia for us to read today.
And these stories apply to every single one of us. There were all sorts of different people in all different walks of life doing all sorts of different things.
Thanks for reading,
Sis. G
Same post is also here
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