Have you ever had an eye exam before?
"8 Behold, great and marvelous are the aworks of the Lord. How bunsearchable are the depths of the cmysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man dknoweth of his eways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the frevelations of God.
9 For behold, by the power of his aword bman came upon the face of the earth, which earth was ccreated by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the dearth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure?
10 Wherefore, brethren, seek not to acounsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in bwisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.
11 Wherefore, beloved brethren, be areconciled unto him through the batonement of Christ, his cOnly Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a dresurrection, according to the epower of the resurrection which is in Christ, and be presented as the ffirst-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith, and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh.
"12 And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not aspeak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?
13 Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the aSpirit speaketh the btruth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really care, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us dplainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also espake them unto prophets of old.
14 But behold, the Jews were a astiffnecked people; and they bdespised the words of cplainness, and dkilled the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their eblindness, which fblindness came by looking beyond the gmark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they hcannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may istumble.
15 And now I, Jacob, am led on by the Spirit unto prophesying; for I perceive by the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that by the astumbling of the bJews they will creject the dstone upon which they might build and have safe foundation.
16 But behold, according to the scriptures, this astone shall become the great, and the last, and the only sure bfoundation, upon which the Jews can build.
17 And now, my beloved, how is it possible that these, after having rejected the sure foundation, can aever build upon it, that it may become the head of their corner?
18 Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken from my firmness in the Spirit, and stumble because of my over anxiety for you."
And here's the commentary entitled: "I can avoid spiritual blindness by focusing on the Savior":
"As Jacob worked to turn his people more completely to the Lord, he warned them not to be spiritually blind and not to despise the gospel’s “words of plainness” (see Jacob 4:13–14). According to Jacob 4:8–18, what can we do to avoid spiritual blindness?
See also Quentin L. Cook, “Looking beyond the Mark,” Ensign, Mar. 2003, 40–44."
There was a time when I did have an eye exam myself because I thought something was wrong with my eyes. After my eyes were checked with the machine, the eye doctor told me that nothing was wrong with my eyes. My thick eyelashes would catch dirt and that's causing the problem. The doctor then recommended a cleaning gel to use in keeping my eyelashes clean.
The doctor used a machine to assess my physical vision and discovered what exactly was going on. My eyes themselves have no problem at all. The dirt on my eyelashes was making my vision kind of blurry from time to time. Our spiritual vision may become blurry from time to time as well. It's not because something is wrong with our spiritual eyes. It's maybe because our spiritual eyelashes caught some dirt. So, just as the doctor recommended a cleaning gel for my dirty eyelashes to get clean, we can also do something to clean up our spiritual eyelashes.
Jacob said, "Seek not to counsel the Lord, but to seek counsel from his hand" (v. 10). The Lord is perfect and so it makes sense to seek counsel from Him. We could not go wrong as we do so. This is how we focus on the Savior. If we are seeking to counsel the Lord, we are losing focus on the Savior this way and turning our focus on ourselves. And when we focus on ourselves, setting ourselves up because we are right--that's pride already, a dirt in our spiritual eyelashes which has to be cleaned. We can do all things through Christ. Because of Him, because of His Atonement--this enabling power is what's helping us to do all things. The Lord is in charge, not us. We are able to rise above our challenges because of Him. So, we can't say we're able to do all things despite our challenges. This is focusing on ourselves alone. This is taking pride in our own ability and not recognizing the hand of God. We can do all things through Christ that's why He wants us to seek counsel from his hand.
When we pray, we tend to ask the Lord to make things happen for us. This is seeking to counsel the Lord. When we pray and ask the Lord to make things happen according to his will, this is seeking counsel from his hand.
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