connections!

I tell my youth that one of the keys to intelligence and gaining truth is the ability to make connections, or "ah-hahs!"  I love it when things just 'click' together...

For instance, last week, in church, I had an awesome stream of connections that I felt were inspirations from on high--the source of true knowledge and wisdom :).

Last week in my Vanguard group, a youth gave a powerful presentation on "dreams" (his personally preferred way to refer to his personal goals).  I have had that concept on my mind lately, and so when in gospel doctrine, the teacher stands up and says, "Today we are going to study dreams in the scriptures"...it caught my attention more than usual.  The first dream we studied was Nebuchadnezzar's in Daniel, about the stone cut without hands smashing into the statue.  Well, this reminded me of the topic I am studying with my youth in history class, the Chaldean time period.  In fact, this account in Daniel was part of what I wanted to teach them that week!

That led me to two thoughts....first of all, the words of the third verse of our sacrament meeting rest song earlier that day was verse three of "Who's on the Lord Side, who?": "The stone cut without hands, to fill the earth must grow. Who'll help to roll it on? Who's on the Lord's side, who?"  A direct reference to Daniel's dream!

And then, it reminded me of the Goob that morning, who had been looking for a FHE video supplement to go with the "Dare to stand alone" talk by Pres. Monson he had just read for his Faith in God award.  Quinn asked him to focus his lesson on courage, on being able to stand alone, so he searched for that on lds.org and came across a so cool video about...guess who?  Yep!  Daniel!  It was amazing, powerful, and in the background and setting perfectly captured everything I had learned about the Chaldean culture in my history prep for the class.
http://lds.org/media-library/video/old-testament-visual-resources?lang=eng&query=courage#2010-06-10-daniel

This led me to think also about the courage of our youth, the need for their purity to not only be able to interpret dreams like Daniel, but to be able to pursue them effectively.

All this from some "little" things, here and there, coming together to increase my understanding...all while seeking knowledge through the spirit.

In the Doctrine and Covenants, one of my favorite verses is found right before the oft-quoted, "for many are called,but few are chosen", in section 121 verse 33:
"...As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints."

Sometimes, I feel that He is pouring down so much, it is impossible to "catch" it all!  When I feel overwhelmed by that, I try to remember that if He sent it down once and I did all in my power to catch as much as I could (i.e. record it or share it or both!), then, since He still has that knowledge up there, He can send it again when I need it.  Sometimes it is just nice to be reminded that He truly knows everything and can send us so much if we are open to it and value it enough to do something about it :).


A little addition, today as I was reading in 1 Nephi 15 in the Book of Mormon, I noticed that when Nephi was trying to explain the revelation he received as an interpretation of the tree of life, he was making these "connections"--like in verse 20...so cool!