Mosiah 8

(August 28, 2013)
We have a modern understand of knowledge.  We think that knowledge, of whatever type and however achieved, is a positive thing.  After all, assuming that the knowledge is truthful why wouldn't it be advantageous to have.  We see the detrimental effects of that all around us.  Our entertainment is coarsened because it is "true to life."  We fail to protect our children, because "this stuff is out there and they will be exposed to it anyway."  So we have foul movies and give condoms to second graders, and we wonder why our society is coming apart at the seams.

The lesson of the seer stones, to me, is that there are some things we just don't need to know (or don't need to know right now).  If we had the capacity to know all things, wouldn't we use that knowledge in ways that are contrary to the Lord's will?  Eventually, however, we will be sanctified ad have no more desire to do evil -- when that day comes, we can be trusted with such knowledge.  Until that time, however, we should be satisfied in knowing what the Lord would have us know.

By that same token, this also applies to issues of Church doctrine or history.  If we don't understand something it is find to study it out, but we should always ask the Lord first before studying if it is something that we should understand.  If the answer is to wait until we are better ready to know something, we must be spiritually mature enough to be patient and wait on the Lord to give us the knowledge and light that we need to understand whatever is causing our confusion.