~Pride~

I have mentioned this before, but I pretty much use this blog as my journal so...whenever I have a thought or something that I feel needs to be written down, I blog. Lately I have found myself in a rut, I feel like I go to church and am "mormon" on sundays, but I find that during the week, I don't spend much time studying my religion, or drawing closer to my savior, who has given me everything. I made it a goal this week to change that, and to spend at least a half hour every day studying the gospel, and learning as much as I can about it. This includes reading the Book of Mormon, but also relating it to my life today. My posts in the past have not been overly religious, but I feel that religion is such a big part of my life, and that I shouldn't be afraid to share my beliefs with others. While I was reading today, there was a verse that struck me. I was in 1st Nephi, reading about when Nephi asked to see what his father had seen in his dream, and to understand more fully what that dream meant. The spirit asks him questions about the great and spacious building, and Nephi see's the building fall, and how great the fall of that building was. Nephi finds out that the great and spacious building represents the pride of the world. And this particular verse says "Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tougues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb." This struck me as I began thinking about where our country is heading, the direction and how everyday we seem to get further and further away from what is really important. Trying to take God out of schools, and allowing ourselves to be so caught up in the things of the world, that we forget about our God, and in essence, turn against the 12 apostles of the Lamb. I wonder if this is not a direct prophesy of which way our country is headed. As a country, we are very prideful, we know that we are the powerhouse of the world, yet we forget that the reason for that is becuase of our faith in God. As we strengthen our belief that we got where we are on our own, the Lord will stop blessing us. We have already taken a huge blow as far as our economy goes, every day it seems to get worse, and not better. Every day more and more people loose their jobs and are finding themselves in financial hardship because they didn't listen to the prophets when they were told to get out of debt, and to make sure they were working on their food storage. I can't say I'm not one of them. I am working really hard to get out of debt (almost there), but as for the food storage, other things have taken precedence. So I wonder how much better of a situation I would be in if I gave up some of the worldly things to follow the prophet more fully. I find it amazing when I read a book that was written thousands of years ago and yet the messages in them are still so relevant for today!