Come As You Are... Don’t Plan To Stay As You Are

I’m participating in a 6-week “wellness challenge” with teams, points, more veggies, less sugar, & the hope this kicks off some new healthy habits. 

Sounds like January!😆

I’m coming as I am... but I’m not planning on staying as I am.

With Moroni’s visit, light filled the dark room, “lighter than at noonday” (JSH 1:30). 

Words were spoken. Instruction was given. 

And when the light left, “the room was left as it had been before this heavenly light had made its appearance.” (43)

The ROOM was left as it had been before.

But JOSEPH was not left as he was before.

He “lay musing... marveling greatly” (44)

Moroni comes a 2nd time.

And Joseph “lay overwhelmed in astonishment” with “deep... impressions” on his mind. (46)

And after a 3rd visit, 

Joseph “ponder[ed]” (47)

Knowing life would NEVER be the same.

Knowing HE would never be the same.

When heavenly light enters the rooms of our hearts & we are lifted onto the illuminating plane of spiritual experiences, what happens when we come back down? What happens when we step off sacred ground?

Do we go back to sleep? 

Or are we changed?

"We want to hold fast to the spiritual impressions... & inspired teachings... But it is inevitable that after heavenly moments in our lives, we, of necessity, return to earth, so to speak, where sometimes less-than-ideal circumstances again face us.” (Holland)

Do we “keep the change”? (Becky Craven)

Joseph’s life was a series of intense spiritual moments, revelation, angels- and then severe persecution, injustice, traitors, “hell [raging] against [him]” (D&C 122:1) Imagine the emotional whiplash. 

As he cries “O God, where art thou?” (121:1) on the filthy ground in Liberty Jail, does he long to go back to his room, back to his bed, back to his previous self? Would he take everything back?

He could have. BUT HE DIDN’T.

“I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it” (JSH 1:25)

He held fast to the light.

An uneducated farm boy became a prophet. 

We are here to become; let heaven’s light change your earthly experience.

"’Come as you are,’ a loving Father says to each of us, but He adds, ‘Don’t plan to stay as you are.'” (Holland)