Flooding My Life with the Book of Mormon 2.0

2 Nephi 9:13 O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand, the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible, and immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like unto us in the flesh, save it be that our knowledge shall be perfect. God has a plan. Indeed, He is the Master Planner. He knows how He wants things to go on both cosmic and microcosmic scales. He planned the creation of the universe, and He planned the placement of every blade of grass. Nothing is too large or too small to be excluded from God’s plan. A plan, however, is not predestination. Man's agency is also part of God's plan. Therefore, His plan is full of contingencies. As a project manager, I created many plans in my career. No project ever proceeded exactly according to the "happy path" of my plan. So, I always had...

2 Nephi 9:12 And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel. Everyone who is not in the presence of the Father is in hell. That is the definition of hell most common in the Book of Mormon. In other words, any place that is not the celestial kingdom is hell. In modern vernacular, we tend to speak of the three degrees of glory and limit our idea of hell to outer darkness to which Satan and the sons of perdition are consigned. But in Nephi's mind, any glory that is not celestial is not worth talking about.  No matter how many levels hell may have, it's all hell to Nephi. He has only one goal, and that is exaltation,...

1 Nephi 10:19 For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round. A friend of mine explained "one eternal round" like this:   "When I read this phrase, the song that comes to mind is 'Row Row Row Your Boat.' This song is a classic example of a round. So here is my take. A round is a piece of music where the next group comes in and repeats what the previous group has already done, while the first group continues to the next piece of the song. As new groups enter, the music becomes more harmonious and beautiful. So, in this context, I think 'one eternal round' fits well. The difference is, the Lord's song never ends, so we never go back to the beginning, and it never fades, but only becomes bigger, more harmonious, and wondrous. Tha...