As I was able to get most of my paper written yesterday (I'll finish off the last few paragraphs today), without ever mentioning the Book of Mormon or my personal beliefs, perhaps I actually had gotten that information out of my system yesterday morning and God doesn't actually want me to mention my religion in my essay. Then again, I probably shouldn't assume, because I was able to do something, that God didn't want me to do something else.
God often allows things to happen that aren't necessarily according to His will, and some people sometimes mistake His lack of interference for a sign that He actually willed the thing to happen. For example, I could go out and kill some random stranger, and I don't think that God would stop me. I'm should He could apply some Divine Intervention, but I don't think He would. God lets us make our own choices, even when those choices involve committing serious sins. That doesn't mean that God wants us to go out and commit sin - just that He won't stop us. As another example, the early settlers were "allowed" to kill native Americans, but I'm not sure if that was God's will or not, as they assumed it was.
There are many paths available to us, and because God respects our freedom to exercise our agency, He doesn't often "hedge up" the paths He doesn't want us to take. He may give us a nudge here or there, as He might have done for me yesterday, but He's not going to force us to act according to His will. So we shouldn't assume that because God permits something to happen, that means God wanted it to happen. I don't think it's God's will for anyone to commit sin, but He still lets it happen because He gave us that freedom of choice.
I chose to write a paper that doesn't mention the Book of Mormon. Perhaps that was a mistake on my part. I don't think it was a sin. It may be a display of cowardice, or it may be a display of caution. I'm too close to the issue to rightly judge. Anyhow, that is the choice I have made, and I highly doubt that I still have time to change it. It may be in accordance with God's will for me to have written the paper I wrote, but I won't assume so. I can't always tell what the Lord's will is. All I can do is try to learn it through the scriptures and modern revelation, including personal revelation, and try to act according to whatever light we have. I might have ignored a prompting this time. If I have, I'll try not to do it again.
1 comment:
I also find it hard sometimes to know if something is a prompting or my own thoughts. I semi-joke that if I do not want to do it, it's a prompting, but I don't think it is actually the case that God is always thinking up things for us to do that we won't like or do not want to do. Sometimes He even prompts us to do things we do like and want to do, right? But then I doubt that it's Him. I need to get better at studying things out and really listening to the Spirit. Some people seem to be naturals, but my natural man seems to be resistant.
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