As I studied Alma 32 for Book of Mormon class today, I was all full of questions. The seed is the word is the atonement of Christ, and if we will plant it we will know it is good because it will grow. Grow? What exactly does Alma mean here? I'm still working on that one.
We went outside to study Alma 32, and wandered on the grass lovingly cared for by BYU's fantastic grounds crew. Teacher asked me to prepare to teach the class the key doctrines of Alma 42 at the end of class, which is a lot harder than it sounds. That took some of my focus, but enough of me stayed with the class that I noticed these bald spots by the campus walkways, and thought about Alma 32 and the seed that is the word that is the doctrine of the atonement, and how care and nurturing are needed to protect its growth.
All these grassless shortcuts by the walkways are created when we feel we don't have time to stick to the paths or would be too inconvenienced by doing so. Grass is resilient, but too much trampling flattens and then kills it. The connection isn't perfect, but as I walked I thought about how often we decide we don't have time or space in our lives for the precious gift of the atonement. We ignore and trample on our faith because we feel we're in too much of a hurry to read scriptures or attend the temple. We reject Christ's atonement when we decide that so many others have already walked off the path that it won't make a difference if we do too, and even more so when we decide that we have trampled on the grass so many times ourselves that it's pointless to stop now.
If we can prioritize and protect the word, taking time to give it space to grow in our lives and believing that now is not too late to begin to respect, accept, appreciate the atonement made by Jesus Christ, we'll have the privilege of watching our lives become more beautiful as the bald spots fill with growth and life.
I have puzzled over the idea that a seed is good because it grows for many years. Can't a bad seed grow as well? Finally it just clicked one day. A couple verses down, Alma says "your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand." I think that's what Alma means by the seed growing. It goes back to the definition of light and truth, that which illuminates. Thanks for the wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteI think that's a pretty good connection. Nice post =)
ReplyDeleteJames, wonderful explanation of the seed growing! That makes a lot more sense.
ReplyDeleteAgreed with James. Perhaps instead of focusing on the seed growing, we should focus on our soul growing. A good seed enlarges our soul (v. 28); a bad seed devours it, causing it to shrink and shrivel. As an analogy, a crop-devouring fungus certainly grows in the sense that it gets bigger -- but in the larger, figurative sense of "growth" as improvement, not just change, does it really add to the world?
ReplyDeleteI really liked that example. It's a great way to look at how we often ignore the greatest gifts we have. And it's sad sometimes that we can find a seed that is good and grows, but then we don't nurture it long enough for it to "bear fruit". And that's where we really know what it is - when we can see how it influences us and how it changes us and the world around us. It just takes some effort - and I like the way you describe how we often trample it out with out tries for shortcuts and trying to get to somewhere else instead.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.