Reading the Dream

So, funny thing; I blogged about the scriptures, then I didn't read them. I usually read at least a little bit out of the scriptures every night before bed, but I haven't been doing that the last few nights. I really should have, because the instant I opened the book to my bookmark, I knew exactly what I wanted to blog about. The chapter I'm in is on Lehi's Dream.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this dream (some non-Mormon may find this blog someday), Lehi is a prophet who had a dream about the Tree of Life, "whose fruit was desirable to make one happy." Leading up to this tree, there was a rod of iron, which people followed to the tree to get to the fruit. I'm cutting A LOT of stuff out for simplicity. Only the tree, the fruit, and the iron rod are important right now.

This dream was later interpreted, and the symbolic meanings for most parts of the dream were explained. The tree was a representation of the love of God. Eating the fruit was symbolic of gaining Eternal Life, and the iron rod was the word of God, which guides us along the straight and narrow path. But only if we follow it.

Just having a long, metal stick isn't going to help us much, even if one end of the stick was attached to a tree. Just having the scriptures isn't going to help much, even if they're filled with the words of life. We need to read the books if they're going to do us any good. And after we've read them, we need to follow their teachings.

Anyone in Lehi's dream could have held on to the iron rod and just stood there. Yes, they had the iron rod, and yes, they were holding fast to it, but it wasn't getting them any closer to the tree. Similarly, while it's essential that we have the scriptures to start off with, just having them isn't enough. We need to frequently read and apply the teachings in the scriptures in order to follow the path to Eternal Life (and get enough insights to have fresh material for our blogs).