Fruit of they loins 2 Nephi 3

Fruit of thy loins... 

You can't buy it. ..
                 You can't invent it
                           You can't discover it.. 
                                      You can't learn it... 
                                               and you will never own it. 

It's a gift. It's a promise fulfilled.
      It's a sacrifice worth taking.  It's where eternity lies. It's how God bestows on us our greatest joy.

2Nephi 3 is about how God protects our faith with his promises. How the covenants he makes with our fathers get passed down and are kept... by Him. Only we can break our covenants with God. God is faithful. He will always keep his promises. This chapter is a witness to the love of God to Lehi's family.

The gift of the "fruit of our loins"  comes when we choose to share the love we have for God with our chosen companion, our eternal helpmate, our partner and spouse. It comes when we face a "wilderness of afflictions" and great sorrow and hold fast to our covenants. It comes when we, no matter the circumstances bear our children into mortality. The gift of the "fruit of our loins" is not meant to be confused with having offspring.  Only children born under or blessed by the covenant can have the right to be esteemed as "fruit of our loins" because they alone are privy to understanding and respecting  the power of the priesthood covenants. These priesthood blessings then allow us to bestow these blessings upon our posterity.

In reading through this patriarchal blessing that Lehi bestows on Joseph, I realized that Lehi wanted to give a great inheritance to his youngest son. What could be greater than the gift of eternal perspective with regards to God's love for his family? He promises him land and security.... if they (his seed) will keep the commandments of God. He promises that his seed will never be completely destroyed but will continue forward through the generations of his family toward the time when the Lord would answer the covenant that he made with their ancestor Joseph of Egypt.

And then from verse 4 clear to verse 24, as he teaches his son about the covenant he proceeds to use the phrase "fruit of thy loins" or a version thereof some 23 times. If I were giving a blessing and wanted to emphasize the importance of something to a very young child, I might use the power of repetition to do it. Children and many adults respond to repetition. It echos within our mind like a song.

"the fruit of they loins shall write and
the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write...
and ....shall grow together" vs 12

As I read this chapter and reread this chapter I began to see the power of God's love. It is manifest in the covenants that he makes with us so that we might have "security forever." It is manifest in his promise to bring us "our of darkness into light." It is manifest in the method of God's love as he chooses to show Joseph of Egypt his future seed and the many miracles that the Lord would preform for them. And he chooses to show Lehi so that Lehi can pass down this beautiful promise. I have to wonder about the amazing joy that Joseph Smith must have felt as he translated this chapter and how he might have pondered verse 15? or 12?

God's love is something the world has misunderstood. They have wanted it be found in fame, fortune, or even education. God's love revolves around his values. God values us. We are his children.

We live in a world where women are taught that their value lies in the making of money - not in bearing children - wear children are counted as a nuisance, an expense, a distraction from our "life work." Only after they have achieved monetary success do many women lend their efforts and desires to their unborn children.  Where men are torn apart by their desire to protect their family from the ills of the world and find a measure and a balance of monetary success. We live in a world where precious covenants and blessings of family life are traded for handheld idols, recreation, and new found technological addictions. We live in a world where the security that comes from keeping our covenants with God gets washed away in a sea of discontent and need for material possessions or constant communication with those who idle their  minds away on frivolous commentary. Where are their hearts? Where does the integrity of their hearts lie? When it comes to the "fruit of their loins" who will turn their hearts? Who but a prophet raised for this day?vs 7

 I am so very thankful for the counsel of living prophets. When I was a young mother they counseled couples who were married to pay heed to their biological clocks and bear their families while they were young. Even though I was anxious about my own educational and life goals, I chose to follow this wise and eternal counsel.

Lehi blesses Joseph (Hawaii Temple)

As I enter the meridian of my life, my greatest joy continues to be the blessings that each of my children bring to me. Each of them has a set of gifts that come from the well of spiritual life that defines them. Each has bestowed upon me a new perspective, a new level of joy,  new opportunities to grow in ways I could have never imagined nor planned or programed or ever conceived. Each of my children love me in a way that only God could bless me with. How grateful I am for living prophets who counsel us to honor family covenants and bless our own lives and the lives of those we love with family.

And as I think and ponder the words of Lehi as he blesses his son Joseph, I can only hope that my own children will one day feel the joy and deep understanding that Lehi conveyed to his son Joseph - or that Joseph of Egypt knew when the Lord showed him the future accomplishments of his seed.

I can only hope that the covenants my fathers have made with the Lord will be fulfilled through my own "fruit," and that I too will have a place in this great work of love that God has chosen to bestow on families that honor the covenants they have made with him.

Genesis 19: 19-30 the city of Zoar.. a little one

Zoar: Means a little thing 

Have you ever been caught within the grasp of something that you knew was not good for you? Have you ever been given a second chance in life to succeed and to move forward and then all you could think of was exactly what you had just been freed from? 

Lot was given a second chance. He had been freed from his ties to the evil in Sodom. He says to the Lord, "thou hast magnified thy mercy... in saving my life." Clearly he understands his good fortune and what is about to happen. So why then does he not exercise his faith and move to the higher ground? 

What happens in verse 20 really caused me to think. Lot and his family are safe from destruction. He is free from the grasp of the sin that was consuming Sodom. It is here that he choose to push his luck and plead for what he is most comfortable for. Like an addict he can not own up to the truth that he would be alone with himself or his family, away from the city.   He must have Zoar, a little one. 

The question is what does he lose when he chooses to disobey the direction of God's servants to "escape to the mountain?" What does he lose when he purposefully chooses to fear "some evil" that might "take me?" Was he truly grateful for his being saved? Or was he only thinking selfishly (as sin causes us to do) If you consider that God's mercy and grace had just supplied him with three angels who saved him from destruction by leading him out of the city and plain, and that his faith had preserved him, why then could he not continue in faith and strength to the higher ground? 

I am considering now the many times in my life when I have been given or had to give instruction concerning how to change a situation for the better. On one occasion my initial instruction was to argue. In fact I did argue and discuss the situation with the Lord. It did not turn out as I would have first hoped. 

I am thinking now of Joseph Smith who, like Lot had not learned this lesson. He wanted what he wanted and did not want to do as he was instructed concerning the 16 pages of manuscript that he loaned to Martin Harris. It too did not turn out as he would have hoped. 

Lot was given instruction to move to higher ground. In stead of exercising faith and trust in the Lord's judgement he argued his need for his soul. Is it not a little one? my soul shall live. How often have we focused on what we could not do and not understood what the Lord knows we can do? 

After much petitioning the Lord gave in to Joseph Smith and the consequence was that the pages were lost. After much petitioning and the urgency of time, Lot's desire is "accepted," and Zoar, is not overthrown. Lot and his family are given permission to "escape thither" where they were able to watch the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with brimstone and fire. 

What if they had gone on to higher ground? What if they had been busy putting their feet one in front of the other and had a different perspective of the destruction? How do you suppose it must have been for them to be on the same level, (the plain) as the destruction? What profit did they gain by being close to the destruction? If they had gone to higher ground would they have heard the cries or smelled the sulphur and pitch as it burned and itched their nostrils? Even if Lot was able to not turn and watch he had led his family here. What had he done to prevent their destruction? 

Lot's wife, we are told is unable to restrain her desire to watch her homeland destroyed. She turns back to the scene and is turned (literally or metaphorically it does not matter) into a pillar of stone. Why? Because of what she desired. Because of what her focus was on. 

How do we turn to stone? Is it something that comes from within? Was it anger that consumed her? Was it the willingness to forgo her family and leave them for the world she had just been led from? 

What is it like to be turned to salt? Did it happen in an instance or is this story, like many in the Bible, condensed to represent a longer period of time? Did she stew over it. Did she and Lot argue? Did her anger and loss overtake her to where she could no longer move and the sulphur and tar encapsulate her? 

What was the one little thing, the Zoar, that caused Lot's wife to turn her heart away from all that was good and allow herself to be hardened to all that God's love would bring? 

What is that Zoar in your life that God has led you away from, has given you direction for, has granted you grace and mercy for, and you have not understood.