• About us
  • The Church of Jesus Christ
  • The Family
  • The Living Christ

4 brothers blog

4 brothers blog

Category Archives: Light

Treasure In Earthen Vessels

20 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Colby Alexander in General, Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, Light, Love, Motivation, Opposition, Poems, Strength, Trials, Weakness

≈ Leave a comment

 

jarsofclay

Sometimes we don’t see our own worth in the eyes of God. We are his children, and he knows and loves each one of us perfectly. We mean everything to Him. He knows us, our problems, our fears, our apprehensions, our insecurities, our weaknesses, our doubts, our reservations, everything. He knows how we feel, how we think, how we are afraid to open up to our problems, and admit them even to ourselves. He knows! And He understands. And yet, He still loves us unconditionally! Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves of our true worth in His eyes, not our own, or anyone else’s. Just His.

For our Sunday School lesson this week, part of the scripture reading was in 2 Corinthians Chapter 4. As I was skimming through those verses, I read this which beautifully explained this principle to me. This is Paul speaking…

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

I loved these words of encouragement. Paul and all the Saints and apostles and disciples were being persecuted for what they believed. But, in their sadness, pain, and worry, they had solace in Jesus Christ and in the comfort that He gives. The closer to the Comforter we get, the greater our resilience to pain, and suffering becomes, and the closer we get to our Savior.

Lets all look at our difficult times as opportunities to become closer to the Comforter, and to Jesus Christ who sends Him to us.

 

A Humble Prayer

My God! Through vessel weak and frail,
Wherein thy treasure hides,
Come shine thy light through darkened veil,
reveal my heart inside,

Real power comes through thee, not I,
Thy will, not mine, I’ll do,
‘Tho trouble, pain, despair reside,
Thy comfort will be true,

And when dark hours shall pass me by,
and I, cast down, will be,
As I look to thy treasure’s light,
Thy face, Thy love, Ill see!

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket

Like this:

Like Loading...

Turn on the Lights

24 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by Colby Alexander in Light

≈ Leave a comment

Photo courtesy of Your Mom, with permission from Tyson

When we are kids, sometimes we learn things the hard way.  My brother Tyson, coincidentally the founder of this blog, learned a valuable lesson when he was younger. This was rather unfortunate for him, but hilariously fortunate for all of us. Here is the story of the photo seen above.

He was playing the game “prison break” one night in a basement with no lights on. Apparently, there is a reason its not called “prison break in a well lit basement” Not just any basement, but another friend’s basement that he was not familiar with.

In his adrenalin fueled excitement, and while running full speed, escaping capture and certain death, he proceeded to collide, at full speed, into Jared Bennett’s thick head, who also happened to be running at full speed in the exact opposite direction, thus doubling the force. It would have made any  fighting ram or linebacker proud. But, being ill equipped in the helmet or horn department, His soft cartilaginous nose took the whole brunt of the force from the head on collision.

As many street hardened fighters know, your nose is not the hardest part of your body, nor does it tend to hold up well when it is the leading part of your body mass slamming into an oncoming object such as someone else’s forehead. Needless to say, Jared Bennet’s forehead walked away victorious and relatively unscathed, other than some rather significant blood spatter. Tyson’s nose, on the other hand, became somewhat larger, flatter, and bloodier that night.

During the ensuing weeks we were treated with a daily reminder of this spectacular event. Each time we gazed upon his swollen countenance, this moment was relived over and over again. It is still funny. With two eventual black eyes he could hardly open, and a large swollen nose, he was quite a stunning reminder of the fragility of nasal cartilage.

The moral of the story?

Either wear a helmet when running around playing in the dark, or….Turn on the lights!

Even a little light is better than no light.

Darkness is part of life. Its part of our daily life. Every day the sun comes up, and the darkness recedes, only to once again give way to the light of the morning. Man has dealt with darkness since the beginning by trying to maintain some form of light to be able to see in times of darkness.

In the early days, it was torches, or fires. Later, man graduated to lamps, and lanterns. Then, on to light bulbs and electricity. Now, there are cities that never sleep.

But, how often do we still run around in the dark, hoping to avoid running into each other and bloodying our noses?

In the scriptures we can learn a lot about spiritual darkness, its perils, and also the benefits of staying close to, and benefiting from the light.

In the Book of Mormon we learn about Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, and the “dark and dreary waste” through which he must wander. In Lehi’s dream, that represented the course of our lives. In that same vision, even those who were attempting to hold on to the iron rod were also surrounded by the “mists of darkness“.

In the days preceding Christ’s visit to the Nephites, the whole land was covered in literal darkness, so dark they could feel it. It was described as a “vapor of darkness” so that “there could be not any light at all”.

Joseph Smith experienced pure darkness immediately before he experienced his vision. He described being seized upon by some power and that felt a “thick darkness gathered around [him]”.

In all of these accounts, we learn about the inevitability of darkness. We can’t completely avoid it, so how do we defeat it? We do it, just as man has always done it- with light.

Physically, we make torches, lanterns, fires, and turn on the lights! We do what it takes so that we can see clearly, so we don’t lose our way, and run into speeding objects and break our noses.

Spiritually, how do we do it? Joseph Smith’s experience demonstrates how spiritual darkness is defeated. He said that in the very moment he was about to succumb to the darkness and be destroyed, that he saw “A pillar of light..above the brightness of the sun” In that pillar of light was God the Father and Jesus Christ.

That is how we defeat this type of darkness. We invite the light of Christ in. This light becomes our torch, our lantern, our fire, or our sunshine. Then, we keep it going to last through the night, or darkness in our life. In the very moment that Christ comes, the darkness is gone. Its exactly as the hymn says, “The morning breaks, the shadows flee!”

The scriptures explain this concept even better than I can.

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light”

Mathew 6:22 

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

John 8:12 

“Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God… I am the light which shineth in darkness…“

D&C 6:21

Sometimes, when its dark, and we feel isolated, alone, or even scared, or we just can’t seem to see whats in front of us, we need to just…..turn on the lights, and invite Him in.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pocket

Like this:

Like Loading...
Follow 4 brothers blog on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 191 other subscribers

Recent Posts

  • The Big Box Paradox and the Fable the Labels Enable
  • Stranger Things Have Happened
  • The Real Gift of Christmas
  • Killer Butterflies, and the Best Day Ever.
  • Listen, Prepare, and Live

Blog Stats

  • 15,314 hits

Instagram

No Instagram images were found.

4 Brothers Blog

4 Brothers Blog

Follow us on Twitter

My Tweets

Blogs I Follow

  • The Christensen Six
  • A Cop's Thoughts
  • Gena Standing Out
  • Feast Upon the Words of Christ
  • anthology78
  • 4 brothers blog

Blog at WordPress.com.

The Christensen Six

A blog about family, faith and fun

A Cop's Thoughts

Life after a shooting

Gena Standing Out

Inspirations and musings of a woman used to standing out from the crowd

Feast Upon the Words of Christ

An invitation to learn from my personal "feast upon the words of Christ" (2 Nephi 32:3)

anthology78

4 brothers blog

  • Follow Following
    • 4 brothers blog
    • Join 59 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • 4 brothers blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: