Highlighting the Book of Mormon in more than 100 Days

A little while ago, I finally finished the "read the Book of Mormon in 100 Days" challenge I set out to do as one of my New Year's resolutions.  I was doing extremely well with keeping up with the number of pages that I was required to read in order to finish in time right up to the 85th day.

But I made one fatal error:  I didn't plan for finals or end of semester projects.  I got so super caught up with my final art project, my MCOM final case, my ISYS website, and my Finance final that I sadly missed several days of reading.  And when you miss just one day of reading, that puts additional pressure on every future day after that.  So in the end, I finished the Book of Mormon in about 110 days. 

In my defense, I did decide to add an additional wrinkle to the Book of Mormon resolution.  I went through and highlighted (1) every single reference to Jesus Christ or God the Father--including pronouns--in green, (2) every instance of God communicating to man in blue, and (3) every instance of man doing something to merit that communication in red.

I was pretty liberal with my highlighting.  In the end, the typical page of the Book of Mormon that I had read looked something like this:

 
It took a little while longer and was sometimes pretty tedious, but I learned a lot of neat little bits of information along the way that I wanted to share with y'all.

More often than not, prayer and faith precede revelation.  This might seem like a no brainer, but it became apparent withing just a few pages that many of the spiritual experiences Book of Mormon characters received came as a direct result of their own actions.  Consider this example from the very first chapter of the BofM.

In the very first chapter, on the second page, father Lehi is praying to the Lord when he receives a very impressive vision of the coming Messiah.  As you can see from the picture above, the experience is book ended by Lehi praying to the Lord before the vision, and Lehi again praying to the Lord afterwords (the vision itself occupies most of the left column).  This time, his prayer is in gratitude.  This pattern would be seen again with Nehpi, Ammon, and many other prominent characters throughout the Book of Mormon.

Next time you read about an amazing spiritual experience in the scriptures, pay careful attention to what the recipient of that experience was doing right beforehand.  Oftentimes, you'll find there's a cause-and-effect relationship there.

God tries to get our attention in many different ways.  Angels, visions, dreams, revelations, voices from Heaven, signs, and miracles: all of these are some of the many ways that God communicated with the people of the Book of Mormon--and still communicates with us today.  But the most common way is usually through much less glamorous methods.  God usually works through prophets and other saints, the scriptures, or the whisperings of the Holy Spirit when answering prayers. 

Devastation follows when a people completely and utterly reject every single attempt at communication.  Just look at the four times in the Book of Mormon that we read about massive destruction:

1. The destruction of Jerusalem
2. The huge natural disaster following the death of Christ,
3. When the Nephites are completely wiped out by the Lamanites
4. The total annihilation of the Jaredite people 

In three of the examples, the scriptures explicitly state that "many prophets" visited the people; warning them of their need to repent (see 3 Nephi 10:20, and Ether 9:28-29).  Most of the events were preceded by things such as famines, wars, and prophecies.  It's no wonder that the Lord felt it was necessary to take dramatic action.

Don't assume that God isn't speaking to you just because it's not immediately apparent.  The further into my reading experiment, the more items I highlighted.  This isn't because God became more social once we got through the Isaiah chapters.  Instead, it's because I started to realize that many small and simple events that I had been ignoring were really answers to prayers or tiny little proddings from Heaven.

While on a mission, at the close of those days where just nothing was going right, I realized that one of the best ways to quickly lift myself up was to write in my journal.  I would go through my day in my mind and start looking for every possible way that I had been blessed during the day.  By forcing myself to look for the good in the day, it soon became apparent that the Lord had deeply blessed me throughout the entire day.

This same pattern can be seen in the Book of Mormon as well as in your own life.  A great example of this is Nephi.  Even though he lived in the wilderness, left behind all his worldly possessions, and had to deal with his brothers, he still recognized that the Lord was blessing his life (1 Nephi 1:1).

Another great example of this is an experience my little brother had this week.  He is currently stationed in the middle of nowhere Japan.  A typhoon has been sweeping through the city these last couple of days.  Listen to his story:

"On Saturday, it was raining like crazy. Being outside was like jumping in a pool. It was one of those days where I thought: 'what`s the point?' There was nobody outside and even if there was somebody to talk to, they obviously wanted to get inside quickly. . . As we were riding our bikes, I thought 'yeah, this sucks but we really don`t have a choice, do we?' As I was riding, it was incredible how quickly and how clearly I was able to feel as though I was doing what I was meant to be doing. It was almost like I could feel the Lord put his hands on me and hear him say "thank you." It was a cool feeling and I`m glad that I had that experience even though everything in my bag got completely drenched and all of my clothes are still soaking wet."

Always look for the sunny side!