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1 Nephi 1:15

"And after this manner was the language of my father in the praising of his God; for his soul did rejoice, and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had see, yea, which the Lord had shown unto him."

I think this one made more sense to be when looked at in a different order. Not that it is a hard verse to understand, but the order is backward of the way I would read it for comprehension.

Because of the things which he had seen - meaning the things which the Lord had shown unto him. It is an interesting distinction that Nephi makes right there. It is subtle, but very direct. It was not Lehi that called down this vision for himself. He had only seen these things because the Lord had chosen to show them to him. On occasion I subconsciously chase a "vision" per se. Sometimes I am studying not for my edification or spiritual growth, but because in my mind I am looking for some kind of spiritual marker or badge that I can earn by completing the Book of Mormon in a certain amount of time or something like that. Does that make sense? It is a lot less a what we are doing to study and a lot more about how we are growing and developing from it. I will be honest, I am still giving this a try. I don't really know if this is fully worth my time, but so far I feel like it has forced me to dwell on gospel principles that I otherwise wouldn't have.

So because of these things, his whole heart was filled. I think we all know what this feels like. Even if it has been a long time since it has happened. I feel like it is a little painful. Like my heart is just bursting with emotion (usually it results in me crying). and in addition to this his soul did rejoice. I have always been fascinated with the terms heart and soul being used together. They are very often a pair and although it feels right, I don't know that I really understand why they belong together. I think it has something to do with the physical and the spiritual...but that doesn't make full sense to me. Maybe they relate to different things. Our souls feel out the spiritual whereas our hearts are for emotion? It is a hard thing that I still need to dwell on.

Lastly and probably most interestingly we have the "language" of Lehi referenced again. Never would re revise this to "after this manner was the english of my father." This came up in one of our earlier studies, but the language that Lehi operates under is the language of the spirit. When Nephi was taught in the Language of his father it wasn't some worldly dialect but rather he was trained in the way the spirit communicates with us. Pretty cool stuff.

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