3 Nephi 13

(November 28, 2014)

                The Saviors words, talking about the eye and filling the eye with light or darkness, really struck me as I read through this chapter today.  Of course, the eye isn’t really an eye – our eye is our purpose or focus.  If we are focused towards the light, we become full of light.  If we are focused on the darkness, we become full of darkness.

                I don’t think that is an instantaneous process, nor was it really meant to be.  In my life, and in my experience, there have been times when my eye was full of darkness.  Over time, the light that was within me began to be replaced with darkness.  It took a number of years for the process to reach its conclusion – I was surviving on the light that I had accumulated from the past – but ultimately the light that was in me was gone.

                Now, however, I am reversing that process and the results are once again not instantaneous.  As I focus on truly being a disciple of Christ and learning what conversion and consecration really mean, I find myself slowly refilling with light.  I understand why the metaphor of a well of living waters is used – though there are times when it seems a rainstorm will add to my water level by a few inches, most of the time my progress feels more like water bubbling up bit by bit.  The muck and the filth had to be cleaned out (that had to be the starting point), and to get them gone the Lord needed my well drained dry (I don’t recommend that – it is a horrible experience to go through).  But now that it is clean, the water is also clean and I am enjoying the process of my well being refilled.