From Fasting to Feasting

 We live in a society that is focused on perfection - either a person is a perfectionist or they shun perfectionism. Our definition of perfection is toxic and painful and harmful. In Hebrew, where we read that Abraham was commanded to be perfect, or that Noah was a “perfect man in his generation” the word “perfect” means something different than our modern definition of that word. When reading in Hebrew, you have to take each word one letter at a time because each letter is so full of meaning. After studying that word for a very long time, I began to see it form into something different than I expected. I had often heard people refer to the number “7” in Hebrew as the definition of perfect - meaning whole and complete. But even this misses the mark. It is only a portion of the definition and it gives the wrong impression of the word. The word “perfect” is hard to articulate, because I don’t know if you understand each word I use in the way I use it or if you are defining it differently

A treatise on words and creation. The words we use convey meaning. Sometimes this meaning is powerful and deep. Other times this meaning hurts and is painful. The meanings may fill us with joy. Still, other times it fills us with dread. How? How can words have such powerful meaning? How do words start and end wars? How do words make or break relationships? How does someone not saying a particular phrase bring peace or pain? Why do we share words with each other? Is it not, in it’s essence, for connection? Words help us understand each other. They propound to others that which is internal and unseeable, unknowable in any other way. Words are one of the highest expressions because they allow me to convey my brightest or most noble thoughts, my base and shameful feelings, my fears and triumphs, my sorrows and my joys; words allow me to take all of these abstract things which do not exist in reality and carry them forth into a moment and make them known to all who hear me. Words, in pe

As we continue on with the conversation of Jacob in preparing us to understand the Olive Tree Allegory, he begins to tell us the real purpose for the truths he is going to make known to us. In verses 11, Jacob is telling us to reconciled to Christ, that we might obtain a resurrection in Christ, "...and be presented as the first-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith, and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh."  In other words, we are to be reconciled to God through Christ, by way of the Atonement of the Savior.  What do these words mean?  Application and personal receiving of the Atonement into our hearts for sure.  But there is more to it than that.  Jacob goes from speaking of reconciliation to the stumbling of the Jews to being filled with the spirit of prophecy to teaching the parable of the olive tree.  This, it would seem, is the answer to what it means to be reconciled to Christ and to God through the Atonement of Jesus Chr