Jaredites

I have been studying the Book of Ether this week for Gospel Doctrine.  The past couple of months I have gotten lazy with preparing.  So this week, I really tried to repent, improve and study.  It is just incredibly amazing how the Lord opens up the scriptures to you when you truly study them.  The book of ether actually talks about crying unto the Lord and I feel like that is a lesson that is so powerful.  When we cry unto him either in prayer, or by how we ponder and dive into the scriptures, he can speak so much more powerfully and clearly.

The book of Ether has so many lessons in it.

It is another testament of the book of mormon.  It is incredible to me how the Lord truly testifies through the mouth of witnesses.

It is about a journey to the promised land or a life back with him.

It is about building vessels to get there.  We are the vessels.  What we must do, how hard we must work in order to return to him.

Ultimately, it is a story of the constant need of a Savior.  The theme time and time again is that the brother of Jared can only get so far without the Saviors help.  And it takes crying unto the Lord.  Not just asking or praying, but crying and crying from a prophet.

It is amazing how much symbolism in the book of mormon. When I just read it to read it, I miss it.  When I read it to study and ponder and pray on it, the spirit teaches and I get a little bit more each time.  I get some of the symbolism.  Unfortunately, so often I read the scriptures just to read them, instead of really delving into them.  I am going to do better with that.