"O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead."
Alma 22:18
I love this. "I will give away all my sins to know thee" ... wow. King Lamoni's father wanted to know God, and so he talked to him, even though he wasn't even sure that he was there. He had so much hope; he wanted it to be true. If God was there, it was worth everything to him. It was worth his kingdom, and here, most importantly, his sins.
How often do we see God's presence as that important to us? I think that too many times *I* at least take it for granted. I'm willing to give up this sin, or that sin... but only temporarily, and I'm rarely willing to do the work that I would have to do to dig down to the root cause of it all, and root the wicked spirit out of my breast (which is something that this man wants to do 3 verses earlier). As C. S. Lewis says, if we want Heaven, we have to give up even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I imagine a postcard from the tour of Hell... "hot here, but the landscape is lovely" ... :) and no matter how much we love the mini-snowscape titled "a cold day in Hell" and the T-shirt that says "Tourist from Hell" or the doubts and beliefs that it is much easier to live with than to overcome... they all have to be given up.
So maybe we should think about souvenirs today. What sins can we give away? Let's have a garage sale and get rid of all the knick-knacks from Hell we have around. Better yet, no garage sale, because we don't really want anyone else to have them either. Let's put them all in those super-strength garbage bags, and kick them to the curb. The spiritual trash men will come and take them away. :) When we give them all away, then we will be ready to know God on a much deeper level than we do now.
Alma 22:18
I love this. "I will give away all my sins to know thee" ... wow. King Lamoni's father wanted to know God, and so he talked to him, even though he wasn't even sure that he was there. He had so much hope; he wanted it to be true. If God was there, it was worth everything to him. It was worth his kingdom, and here, most importantly, his sins.
How often do we see God's presence as that important to us? I think that too many times *I* at least take it for granted. I'm willing to give up this sin, or that sin... but only temporarily, and I'm rarely willing to do the work that I would have to do to dig down to the root cause of it all, and root the wicked spirit out of my breast (which is something that this man wants to do 3 verses earlier). As C. S. Lewis says, if we want Heaven, we have to give up even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I imagine a postcard from the tour of Hell... "hot here, but the landscape is lovely" ... :) and no matter how much we love the mini-snowscape titled "a cold day in Hell" and the T-shirt that says "Tourist from Hell" or the doubts and beliefs that it is much easier to live with than to overcome... they all have to be given up.
So maybe we should think about souvenirs today. What sins can we give away? Let's have a garage sale and get rid of all the knick-knacks from Hell we have around. Better yet, no garage sale, because we don't really want anyone else to have them either. Let's put them all in those super-strength garbage bags, and kick them to the curb. The spiritual trash men will come and take them away. :) When we give them all away, then we will be ready to know God on a much deeper level than we do now.
No comments:
Post a Comment