"But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender cmercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of ddeliverance."We looked through 1 Nephi 1-17 at various instances from Nephi's life where he benefited from the Lord's tender mercies, what those mercies were, and how it resulted in his or other people's deliverance. While discussing one of Nephi's trials, our instructor, Dan, brought up the ancient Hebrew prose form of historical parallelism, where past events that are held in reverence are used to illustrate a point, such as the Lord's consistency in delivering His people, in this case, as Nephi often cited Moses' experience with the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and various experiences they had during their 40 yr sojourn in the desert.
As we delved further and further into the scriptures, and other's continued to comment on various things, Dan asked a question at the end that caused a lights on experience for me that got my heart pounding. "Why tender mercies?" he asked... and I couldn't help but think of parallelism in the ancient records we often see, especially those instances where we read how various people and laws are in similitude of Christ's Atonement for us. What greater tender mercy could we have than that, which ultimately leads to our deliverance from justice's miserable grasp and elevates us to a most joyous circumstance? It seems like every time the Lord sees fit to proffer a tender mercy on our behalf, for whatever reason, it should prompt us to remember the Atonement's place in our life and in turn humble us further.
This lights on experience was a signal to me that my heart was in a right enough place for the Spirit to be my companion tonight, feeding me insight, teaching me wisdom...a place I hadn't been in too long of a time. Much too long, and I felt my old friend return to me tonight. Much love.
Thank you, I really enjoyed this. And probably really needed it right now.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really love how Nephi somehow has managed to link almost everything to Christ. Someone pointed out to me that every positive part of Lehi's vision parallels one of Christ's names. The strait and narrow path (He is the way) accompanied by a rod of iron which is later called the word of God (we often label it as the scriptures but Christ is known as the Word). It continues and I love it.
Have a great day by the way!
You should just fly out for our institute, JJ - I think you'd enjoy it immensely.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm glad even this little piece of stream-of-consciousness musing was able to be a conduit for the Spirit. =)