Foreordained
by Autumn Dickson
As we begin the chapters for this week, we find Alma preaching to the people regarding a variety of topics. One of these topics is how high priests are foreordained and sent to the earth to fulfill special callings.
Alma 13:3-4
3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained-being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.
4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.
According to these verses, people are foreordained according to their faith and good works before they came here. Men and women were chosen and prepared to do specific things in their lives as dictated by their actions in the premortal existence. I think of all the men and women who are leading the church and building the kingdom in significant ways.
And I also thought about the fact that there are many of us who aren’t chosen as general church leaders. I think about those of us who have quieter callings. What does that say about us? I used to think it meant that I simply wasn’t good enough, that I hadn’t been strong enough to choose or that I didn’t have it within me to be one of these foreordained.
Interestingly enough, the second verse teaches us exactly what keeps someone from having the same great privileges as their brethren, namely a hard heart and blind mind. Let’s talk about those two things in the context of being foreordained.
A blind mind
What does a blind mind look like in the context of foreordination? When I think of blind, I obviously think of someone who can’t see. So we’re talking about not seeing this concept of foreordination clearly. I’m sure there are a million ways this can manifest, but there is one that I’m thinking of specifically and would like to talk about.
My husband, Conner, is the one who helped me see in relation to foreordination. I don’t think he ever meant to. I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation about the doctrine of foreordination. However, observing him has brought about a dramatic shift in how I view callings in life.
Conner is not what I thought I would marry. I knew that I wanted to marry someone spiritual, but my view on what it meant to be “spiritual” was very narrow. I was naive, and I thought that being spiritual included long patterns of praying, reading scriptures, and pondering. Interestingly enough, these are all things I’m relatively good at. My sometimes-neurotic personality means that my family reads the scriptures, prays, and goes to church very regularly. Conner and I go to the temple. We have family home evening with all the prayers and songs, and all of the lists get checked off. In my young and limited world view, I believed that this list checking signaled spirituality, and I believed that these were habits that could be easy to anyone who simply chose to prioritize them.
Then I got to know Conner. He was chaotic and impulsive. If he’s holding still during a church meeting, it’s because I’m tickling his back or hand. He hardly remembers to eat, let alone daily worshiping tasks.
But the more I got to know Conner, the more I heard the Spirit whispering to me that there was something more to him that I couldn’t quite grasp. The Spirit would give me these moments where I could see him as the Lord saw him. I couldn’t describe it but I could feel that Lord was molding Conner into something specific, something very different than what I had pictured. And though I couldn’t reconcile it with my view of what spirituality was supposed to look like, I continued the relationship.
Now please don’t get me wrong. I obviously whole-heartedly believe in regular worshiping activities. I do believe we need to do everything to prioritize them because the Lord asked us to. But I also know now that all of these daily tasks don’t always completely equate with goodness and spirituality, and I know there are far more measures of spirituality to take into consideration. I also know that just because these tasks come easily to my personality, they aren’t easy for everyone. I have also learned that the Lord needed different personalities with different strengths and weaknesses in order to build His kingdom to the fullest extent.
And that is precisely what I mean by blindness of mind. For so long, I would read those verses and picture somber people who fit into this very specific archetype, and this extremely narro...
23 июн 2024
