Baptism

When we are baptized in living water, it represents the Living Water that is Christ. Unfortunately, most of us are baptized in dead water (how many living organisms are in any given church's baptismal font? algae? fish? frogs? water skaters? sea life?). Of course, if the symbolism of being baptized in living water is lost on us, I suppose that maybe it doesn't matter anyway - for all the good the symbolism does us.

Then I began thinking of baptism for the dead. Done in temples. Done in dead water. Why? Done for the dead. Seems like there ought to be a connection there.

Strange, isn't it, how some of the symbolism for Christ has eked away without us noticing. Red wine represents the blood of Christ, represents the bitter cup He drank from. A thimbleful of water just doesn't get the same point across as a full cup of bitter red wine. (Someone, I think it was Rock Waterman, said that wine was bitter.)

Search Terms

I was looking at my stats since it has been so long since I was on here. All I can say is, "Good grief! Some of the things that lead people to my site." The terms fall off on a regular basis, and as far as I know, I cannot get a list of all of the ones I've previously had. Anyway, here are the ones I found as I perused in the middle of the night hours.

denver snuffer
snuffer denver
denver snuffer blogspot (I hope they found his page; he's very profound.)

denver snuffer books (Try Amazon.com and do a search on that site.)

denver snuffer disfellowshipped (Not to my knowledge, but there's a post or two on his site that refers to rumors like that.)

denversnuffer.blogspot.com (Okay. I hope the first hit was his address, not mine.)

did adam from adam an eve have a beard? (Well, I don't know about "did adam from adam", but I'm pretty confident that Adam had a beard, but Eve did not.)

how did adam and eve brush their hair? (I have wondered this very thing. Since the scriptures don't mention it, we don't know unless we see it in a vision or dream from God.)

how did adam and eve wash their bodies and hair? (Water. I once took a bath in a slightly salty hot springs. It cleaned my body really, really well. It didn't do much for my hair, but I thought if I'd rinsed in non-salty water, it may have felt better. Also, there are plants that have saponin in them. Adam and Eve could have used them. Other than that, we're back to the answer of having a vision.)

jacob 5 second coming (I suppose I have talked about some of these words a time or two. It's a good chapter to study to get an overall view. I expect that, much like the rest of the Book of Mormon, there is a depth there that most of us common members and all of the scholars have never seen.)

All Things Denote There is a God

Every morning, the sun comes up. Sometimes it is hidden from our view by clouds. The sun is a symbol of Christ. He rose early in the morning. He is the light and life of the world. Without the sun, we would die. Without Christ, we would die.

Though our earthly night is dotted with light (which lights are mostly suns) the night still represents life without Christ (who is Light). The Telestial Kingdom, which is compared to the stars, is life without Christ.

Even though we are not totally devoid of light at night (with stars, moon, and artificial lights), those lights cannot hold a candle to the light the sun gives to us. Thus, even the lights at night are a witness that God is "greater than they all." (Not a genuine scripture quote.) In fact, the artificial lights bring to mind the scripture about walking in your own light and in the fire ye have kindled (my computer crashed a while ago, I'm not using my own computer, and the scriptures on lds.org are a pain to search through and a pain to use because of the addition of letters to the text, referring to footnotes, thus I am not looking up that scripture. It may be in Isaiah, though).

The rising of the sun bears witness of the resurrection. It bears witness that Christ is the Light and Life of the world.

All of nature bears record of our Savior and Lord. If we had eyes to see, and understanding of the generosity of the signs of God, we would know that - a real knowledge.

Shutting out all voices but God's

When we are born, we have to rely on others for our very survival. We learn very quickly (if we weren't born knowing it) that we are dependent upon others.

As we grow, we do some exploring on our own, but most of our information comes from others. Especially in this day in the United States (and perhaps in other so-called “developed” countries), children are kept caged, so that they may not explore. Playpens, car seats, baby carriers, etc. are the norm. Crawling on floors or on the ground is pretty much forbidden for most babies.

(Okay, true confessions. I let my babies roam. I learned by baby three, that they don't even get sick, let alone die if they eat food left on the floor that missed getting swept up.)

True, that babies try to assert their independence around age 1 ½. Most are shot down for it, though. The attempts continue off and on until a child is legally old enough to move out. But by the time a child is in grade school, they have pretty much learned to depend on others' voices.

Teenagers may think they are thinking for themselves if they rebel against their parents, but they really aren't. They are following what someone else told them to think - to be.

So, here's our dilemma: God has told us to rely only upon HIS arm, not the arm of flesh - yet we are surrounded by the arm of flesh. We have learned our lessons well. A partial list of who we rely upon instead of God (though sometimes, we share our reliance upon God and another, yet Jesus has said we cannot serve two masters)

Books

Ecclesiastical leaders

School teachers

College teachers

University professors

Scientists

Other Christians

Non-Christians

Media (either mainstream or not)

Medical professions of all kinds:

      M.D.s

      Chiropractors

      Dentists

      Neurologists

      Surgeons

      Psychiatrists

      Naturopaths

      Herbalists

      Faith healers

      Acupuncturists

      And the list could go on and on

Parents

Neighbors

Self-proclaimed experts

People with a bunch of letters after their names

Publicly-proclaimed experts

Tradition

And on and on.

So here's mydilemma, at least: How do I shut out all others and hear ONLY God?

I know many people on the internet (a tiny few of them “in real life”) who say some pretty awesome things. When they say (okay, write) something, I want to learn more from these people. Whoa, Nelly! Stop right there.

If they are writing by the Spirit and the Spirit tells me the words are true, I seem to have a difficult time separating the awesome words from the person they came through.

And if I have a physical need that I am unable to take care of (say a home or food), I have a tendency to think God cannot help me unless another person is willing to cooperate with Him. Now, technically, that may be true that God won't magically build a house or grow a garden in my poisoned soil, but I'm thinking that if we look at any need we have and have even one part of us that believes God cannot fulfill it without another mortal showing up to help us, then we don't have the faith required for God to help us. Besides, God has worked miracles before, when no one was doing His will because they cared about anyone but themselves.

I think we are so intertwined with others that we cannot even tell when we are not fully relying on the Lord. We think we are, but we defer to someone else for some reason or other.

Perhaps we are even afraid that if we listen to God and to God only, we'll “go apostate” from the religion we belong to. Well, if the religion we belong to really follows God, how is that possible?

I find it a bit frightening to “go it alone with God” yet He has let me know that that is the only way to find Him. I have to let go of EVERY crutch, whether human or not, whether real or imaginary. It has to be just Him and me.