2 Nephi 1

Good afternoon! I hope you are all feeling productive today and have shaken the Monday slums away. This week marks the halfway point in the semester here at BYU. Since I have only gotten us through 1 Nephi, I think I am going to speed things up in the next few weeks. Or I might just continue posting stuff even after the semester is over....I haven't decided. Anyway, while I think about that, I want you guys to think about 2 Nephi chapter 1. This is basically a continuation of 1 Nephi, so it's gonna have some good stuff! It begins with Lehi prophesying to his family members. At this point, he is very old and frail so these are some of his last words to his posterity. In verse 13 he asks the unrighteous to "shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound" and in verse 23 we read, "Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains by which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust." These verses sound a little scary, but in all honesty I love them. Before I talk about these verses, I want to start with a personal story. Up until recently, I felt like repentance was a harsh and hard process. Whenever I learned about it in a lesson or a talk, I just always thought it sounded kinda scary. Maybe I'm the only one with a little bit of pride in my personality, but it's hard for me to admit when I'm wrong. Saying sorry to my parents is hard enough, so saying sorry to my Heavenly Father just seemed like it would be harder. One day I was pondering over this and asked Heavenly Father if I could understand repentance better. I turned to the scriptures and verses like these helped me understand something I never thought about before. 2 Nephi chapter 32 verses 8 and 9 tell us that the "evil spirit teacheth a man not to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray." Nephi goes on to say, "ye must pray always..." Now replace the word "pray" with the word "repent." Heavenly Father wants to hear from us! Whether we are praying out of gratitude or praying because we have to say sorry, He wants to hear it! He has eternal, all encompassing love for you. For me. For your children. For every single person on Earth. Repentance can be hard because it requires us to humble ourselves and admit to a wrongdoing, but our Father in Heaven doesn't want to see us suffer. He wants us to learn from our mistakes, pick up and keep moving forward. Now, back to the verses in chapter 1. I like the phrase "shake off the chains." Whether you are sitting in a chair reading this or standing in your kitchen, just do a little shake. Not hard, right? The gospel makes getting rid of sin simple, but Satan is the one that makes it seems hard. He tells us we don't deserve to be forgiven, or that the process is too difficult to begin. I am here to testify that if we take the first step, our Heavenly Father is more than willing to help us along the way. So, "arise from the dust" and remember that Heavenly Father loves you. YOU! His way doesn't always seem like the easy way, but I guarantee that in the end it will be. He will "pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" if you arise, shine and sparkle the way you were made to.
This is one of my favorite talks of all time. I mean, of all time. Seriously so good, and of course it's by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: It Is Never Too Late