Alma 12:10-11

"And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of hell."
Alma 12:10-11


It is cool, and also very very scary, to think that our knowledge and memories are affected by the state of our hearts. It is cool because it's this awesome opportunity to learn without so much studying as just being open and willing to learn and to receive that blessing from God. 

I love that idea of just kind of having knowledge poured into your mind. Wow. :) And I think that God does that sometimes for us... if we're open and willing, and ready to listen and understand. ... 

The idea is also amazingly scary because as soon as we turn away from that, and shut down, and stop listening, that same knowledge that we got in the cool, amazing way... we can just lose it again. It's like the spirit... or lots of things: friendship, relationships, or a job. All of those things we can easily lose if we don't value them and work to maintain them... or we fail to prioritize them in our lives. 

Our knowledge and memory, especially spiritual knowledge, is like that. We have to maintain our relationship with God in order to keep it. It's something that progresses one way or the other... we're either learning more and more about God, until we know everything (how cool is that?), or we're losing knowledge, little by little, until we know nothing in that regard... and that is the scariest part of all. Because then it's really true at that point... we don't know God at all, and he doesn't know us... not because of any lack of knowledge on his part, but because we chose to withdraw ourselves from the relationship. We're not even acquaintances anymore.

In this story, since we're children, and God is our protector, choosing not to know God is like choosing not to go home after kindergarten and instead getting into a stranger's car. We don't get to choose to be independent of both God and Satan. We're not mature enough and we don't know enough for that. It's one or the other. The parent or the stranger with candy. Today, let's stay far away from that candy, no matter how tempting, and keep our heads (literally our knowledge and memories) by sticking with God and opening our hearts and our minds to him.