Joseph said he advised all to go on and search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of God. Alma said about the same thing in Alma 12: 9-11.
When it comes to sacred knowledge, the absence of curiosity and relentless inquiry is evidence of apathy and indifference. Joseph posed the question in the Lectures on Faith
of how we can hope to inherit the same reward as the ancients without following the same path as they did. Great question, that. Brings to mind Abraham's description of his own relentless search to find God in Abraham 1: 2. I think that is the formula. As is also D&C 93: 1.
What do any of us know about ourselves, God or where we came from and what we are that was not told to us by someone else? Someone else who was also told by others.
ReplyDeleteWe are dependent upon others initially for all we know. But we get experiences which allow us to independently know things for ourselves. This is true of the seasons, mathematics, astronomy, friends, life and God. There may be a number of things in life about which we will remain dependent upon others for our knowledge, but God should not remain one of them. He is as knowable as your own living grandfather, whom you may visit only from time to time.
ReplyDeleteSo Denver, are you saying don't pepper Heavenly Father overly, but trust in your own judgement when it necessitates to do so. Also be sure to be humble enough to ask for strength and wisdom as you proceed along your decided path on a certain issue. In other words, when the training wheels come off, don't ask HF to put them back on, go in Faith, asking for help as needed ?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm saying you can know God just as you know any other person. And you can visit with, or more correctly be visited by Him. Read The Second Comforter: Conversing With The Lord Through The Veil and you will see how knowable I believe God to be.
ReplyDeleteThat having been said, I do think there are times when it isn't necessary for God to respond to questions we ask Him. When the famine gets bad enough, we'll decide for ourselves to go down to the Nile Delta in Egypt to save our lives. (See Abr. 2: 21.) Our common sense and instinct for self-preservation is just as serviceable as a commandment from God to go where food is growing in times of famine.
You make it seem so easy, almost too easy-even tough it wasn't for you, it took years to actually have an audience w Him. This is what I remember from the book.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the Adversary suggests to the average LDS person.."HF is way too busy for you, why bother even trying to get to know Him? You're just a simpleton."
When in fact the Adversary knows that a worthy and humble Priesthood Holder or actual Believer in Christ, has greater potential of access to our Master thereby making Satan want to dissuade us even more.
Is that a correct summation?
Thats how it feels for me.
I think what Snuffer is trying to say is that even though the prescriptive process (i.e. 2 Nephi 31-32 and the endowment) is the same for everyone... Heavenly Father makes the process individual for everyone. For instance, the sacrifices and things that the Lord asks of me are different from what He would ask of someone else.
ReplyDeleteOne can not obtain eternal salvation without obedience and sacrifice. But these are the elements of the process that the Lord individualizes for each of us, according to the needs of our progressions.