1 Nephi 8

Christlike Attributes

verse 2:

"Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision." Blue

Commentary
I was really very surprised at this one. This chapter is the vision of the Tree of Life. I expected it to be colored brightly in my scriptures. And trust me, I sure tried to make it so. But as it's written, it's all prose. It's all a story. Where I'm looking for direct references to the attributes of Christ, marking, "And it came to pass that I beheld a tree" didn't actually make any sense at all. Sure, as a good, Sunday School attending girl, I know what that tree means and that it should be marked since it represents the love of God, but it doesn't say that. In good news, I know it will say that in a few chapters when Laman and Lemuel say, "Huh?!" (And really, thank goodness they did.) So it turns out, this is a rather colorless chapter in my Book of Mormon.

And because this entry is so short, I thought I'd share a discovery I made. In general, I am the kind of reader who can easily focus on the story, or rather, the prose, of scriptures. Whenever we're in story-mode, I'm right on board and reading the scriptures is easy. On the other hand, when it starts talking about more abstract concepts (or the poetry, for lack of a better term), my mind starts to wander and I have a really hard time focusing. This has always been the case. I've been struggling my whole life to figure out how to better pay attention to probably the most critical passages of scripture.

This project, however, has made me do a complete 180. Because I know the stories of the scriptures so well, and I know that what I'm looking for for this project generally isn't in the prose sections, I find myself skimming over the stories and instead focusing on the poetry passages—because I know it's in the poetry passages that I find who Christ really is and what I should be emulating. This is a huge accomplishment for me. It was rather startling when I first realized I was skimming stories and slowing down and focusing more on poetry.

Now I know for a certainty that I really was inspired to do this project. And I know it was for multiple reasons. I am so grateful to a Savior who loves me so much and knows me so well as to inspire a project that will help me grow and learn in the many different facets of life that I need so much.