Continuous Conversion

Alma, the High Priest, goes about talking to his people. He wants them to be righteous. This is a great collection of questions that one can ask themselves in an introspective way to get a feeling for how you are doing. I thought about posting all the questions in a list, but I realized that it really comes down to one question that Alma asked of his people. He talks to them about basically being (and staying) converted.

"if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" (Alma 5:26)

He talks about a couple of things here. First, when we are converted, we experience a change of heart. We want to change, we don't want to sin anymore, and we mourn the things we have done that go against the commandments. When we are converted, and forgiven for our sins, it is like we are born again, starting fresh. Our mortal minds don't necessarily forget our sins, but when we are forgiven of them, we feel like singing praises to God for His plan, and to Christ for the Atonement He performed in our behalf. It is because of this that we can feel clean.

Over time, though, we tend to veer a little off the path and begin to sin. It may not be conscious on our parts, but if we are not constantly watching ourselves, re-evaluating things, it is going to be difficult to stay on the path. We will always make mistakes, no matter how hard we try not to. It's part of being human. The beauty of the question that Alma asks, is that I think that we know. I don't know that we have to go down a list of 40 questions to determine if we are still feeling converted. We just have to ask ourselves if we feel the same way we felt when we were first converted.

When I ask myself that one question, I know there are a number of things I need to improve on, and I want to recommit right now to do that. Starting today, I will do better at those things. You might say that I already am, considering I'm back to thinking about the scriptures more in depth with this post.

I love the scriptures. I am glad for the help that I get in reading them. In truth, part of this reminding that I have gone through with this was because of the General Conference that I was able to experience. I felt the need to be better, and instead of just saying "yep, I need to do better about that", I am trying to actually do so.