I went to talk to my bishop yesterday because he called me and wanted to have a chat with me to see how I am doing. He asked me the general questions about how life is going, how I am handling stress, how things are with my girlfriend, etc., etc., etc. Then he asked me about the things that I learned in my scripture reading over break. This question took me by surprise. I didn't do a good job at reading the scriptures over break and I think that he could tell. I did, however, have something to share with him. Something that really stood out to me one night as we were reading the scriptures together as a family. The scripture comes from Mosiah 2:6. It states...
And they pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple, that thereby they might remain in their tents and hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them.If you notice, it says that their tent doors were turned towards the temple so that they could hear the words of the prophet. I interpreted this to mean that the people had their hearts and spirits opened to God and that they were willing to hear His words from prophets, teachers, the Spirit, parents, and whoever else was God sent. Then as long as they were facing the right direction so that they could hear, they would be on the right path or in hearing distance of the right path if they strayed. If they strayed a little bit, they would hear the words and return to the path because they were still facing the right way. My bishop agreed with me and asked me about those who had tents facing away.
I told him that those who are facing away are those who think that they are facing the right direction and who think are receiving revelation from God, but in reality they are not. They are believing what they want to believe and doing what they want to do. They are followers of the natural man and they are not hearing the word of God because their tent isn't opened to the right direction. He again agreed with me.
He asked me for examples of those whose tents were not facing the right direction in the scriptures. I couldn't think of any so we went through footnotes and cross-references. We eventually ended up in Genesis 13. This is when Lot and Abraham are fighting and Abraham doesn't want to fight with Lot anymore. Abraham decides to let Lot choose the land that he wants.
Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abraham dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom (Genesis 13:11-12).Ironically, we end up at Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't know if this was saying something to me, but it sure struck me hard because that seems to be my greatest weakness here on earth. There were, however, other sins for which Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, but you can't help to wonder how much the people being gay in both cities influenced the decision. This is not my point though. You notice that Lot faced his tent towards Sodom. He had his tent facing the wrong way. It was facing to a place of sin. As the story progresses, Abraham has to go and save Lot and his family because of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot doesn't think that the people there are very wicked. Lot could no longer see the wickedness, because he wasn't hearing the Lord anymore. He was listening to his natural man. He was to far away from the path and facing the wrong direction. Abraham helped correct him. As we know, Lot's wife wasn't corrected and she was destroyed because she looked back to a past life that was wrong. The bishop agreed with me on all of the points I said.
What does this entail for us? It means that we have to be constantly adjusting our tents, spirits, lives, or whatever else you want to call them towards God because He is the one who will show us the way and He is the one who will help us live the best life that we can. If we do this, we will be blessed and we will find true happiness in life. We will find that God's path is much greater than the natural man's. I believe that if we are like the people of king Benjamin who turned their tents towards the temple, then we will be like them and know the truth with surety.
And they cried with one voice, saying: yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually (Mosiah 5:2).
