Let me take a break (and give you a break) this week from the longer columns about journeying and seeking.  Sometimes our best journeys are into a single thought or discovery, and the best seeking we can do is to keep our mind on that one thing as we try to understand it and its implications.

The discovery I speak of came a few years ago when I realized that there was a deeper and more powerful interpretation to one of my favorite scriptures.
            
I had always loved the list of commandments or admonitions in Mosiah 4:12-16. They seemed to be telling me everything from how to keep my temper to what to teach my children (be filled with a love of God, grow in knowledge, live peaceably, do not suffer your children to transgress or quarrel, teach them to love and serve one another).
           
Then one day someone pointed out to me that this was not a list of admonitions but a list of promises. It was an itemizing of the gifts we would be given if we would follow one single commandment given in verse 11:
           
Remember the greatness of God, and your own nothingness … humble yourselves and call on His name.
           
If we acknowledge and remember (and begin to understand) the greatness of God and our own nothingness, then we will be of a mind and an attitude, of a nature and of a spirit that we will, automatically and naturally:

1. Always rejoice
2. Be filled with the love of God
3. Retain a remission of sins
4. Grow in knowledge and glory
5. Live peaceably
6. Be fair (render to everyone what is due)
7. Teach our children not to transgress or quarrel
8. Teach our children truth and soberness and to love and serve each other
9. Have charity for all in need.

What a list of promises! As we try to understand the majesty of the Lord, to see in perspective the vastness of the gap between his light and ours, we will gain that calm, insightful condition of our spirit that precipitates the long list of blessings. This calm and humble attitude, this meekness, this awareness of God’s greatness and our nothingness, is a powerful pre-requisite to spiritual serendipity.
            
Read the scripture again for yourself.  Note the wording.  Remembering the greatness of God and your own nothingness is worded in the form of a challenge, an admonition, a strong point of council.  And the list that follows is clearly the promises that are given to one who accepts and follows the challenge.
            
Can we do it?  And can it produce or lead to the nine great blessings we can imagine?
            
Think about it, and I will see you here next week.