Awakened [me] to a Sense of [my] Nothingness

I was reading this morning in the 4th chapter of Mosiah. I have recently (and by recently I mean for the past few months) been reading from my facsimile of the first Book of Mormon. It's divided into chapters like a novel type book would be, not versus and short chapters like our current edition. It reads more like a story book, and that means you sometimes find yourself going back to read a paragraph or two more often so you can pick out the nugget of gospel knowledge that Heavenly Father wants you to know (aka what stood out to you as you read under the influence of the Spirit). And without the division into versus, sometimes the paragraphs you reread are long, almost as long as chapters in the new edition.

But back to what I wanted to share. The fourth chapter of Mosiah starts out with the King Benjamin's people just having heard the first part of his sermon from the tower at the temple. In that part of the sermon we have such jewels as Mosiah 3:19, a brief overview of the whole plan of salvation, Mosiah 2:17, how the Lord blesses us for everything we do and so we are constantly in His debt, and so many more gospel doctrines/principles/truths that I can't mention them all here (nor do I probably know them all yet, I'm still learning as we all are). But in chapter 4 verse 5-6 I was struck by a sense of my own nothingness and the greatness of God.

It seems to me that the Book of Mormon prophets often want to impress upon us the fact that we are as low as the dust of the earth. That in fact we are nothing and are so because of our fallen state, our inclination to sin and be wicked and not obey the commandments of our God. But as I was reading in verse 6 I realized that almost always, after telling us how we should understand that we are nothing, the prophets offer us the hope and the knowledge of a perfect Savior. We get a taste and a feeling of (especially if we are reading with the Spirit) His goodness, and grace, and mercy, and love. We don't have to wallow in our nothingness; the prophets don't testify of the fallen nature of man just so we will have a pity party. We are almost always immediately given, after being awakened to our human state, the upward look and the sweet taste of the heavenly state.

I imagine our Savior and our Heavenly Father talking about it before every revelation they give to the prophets past, present, and future. The love that emanates from them clearly tells us that they wouldn't have the prophets revel something that just talked about how we are nothing. They would make sure to tell the prophet, whomever it was, to tell us that we have a Savior who is full of mercy and goodness and light and righteousness. That there is a way for us to rejoice in this life because we can look up with hope and know, not just think or wish or dream but really know, that we can overcome our fallen nature and our wicked generation and our sinful inclinations. There is no other way nor means nor name that we can accomplish this and be saved, only in and through the name of Jesus Christ. How thankful I am to Him. I started off today reading about the nothingness of man and the sense of being lower than the dust of the earth. But I finish my scripture study and start this Sabbath day with hope in, joy because of, love for, and a re-dedication to the Savior. What a beautiful Sunday morning it is.