Emmaus

Mosiah 12:27

"Ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise. Therefore, what teach ye this people?"

I can't help but wonder how the apostles didn't recognize the Savior while they walked together on the road to Emmaus. They had seen him three days prior, so he had to have looked more than just slightly different in his resurrected and perfect body for them to not know who he was. I can't imagine the internal pain I would feel if Jesus Christ was standing next to me, and I didn't recognize him. And I've never even met the guy here on earth! Those apostles must have been sick to their stomachs! I do hope that if I am still on the earth when he comes again, that I will recognize him. But how could I? We have no pictures of him that are accurate. We have no descriptions of his distinct physical features (other than the holes in his hands and feet... which in reality.. are pretty disctintive haha, but those men didnt recognize him despite those details, so why would I think that I would be able to?).

I heard recently that we learn physical things physically, and spiritual things spiritually. That struck me when I heard it because it makes a lot of sense. To gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, we need a witness from the spirit that it is true. Reading it as a historical document and simply looking for facts wont prove anything about it to you. But since the book is a spiritual one, to understand and to know it you have to have that spiritual witness. Much like the spirit wont tell you that 2+2=4.. that is simply a physical fact. I imagine it will be much the same when Christ comes again as far as recognizing him. I won't be able to rely on my eyes or any of my senses that I am beholding the Christ, I will have to be able to recognize the promptings of my spirit because my spirit sure will recognize who he is!  Just as they said in Luke: "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" Their spirits certainly recognized who it was walking with them, even if their perceptions did not. 

And really, is it not the same with us in all things, every day? We go through life relying on our eyes, our ears, our hands, and so forth. But often times (far more than we ought to) we neglect the promptings and whisperings of the spirit. An experience that follows closely to this (to a small degree) actually happened to me today. I was leaving Hobby Lobby and was about to head towards my car when a guy in an SUV pulled up and asked me if I wanted some stereos. I thought to myself that it seemed at least worth looking into, so I let him keep talking. He pulled his car into a parking spot and opened up his trunk and showed me the stereos. He was wearing a Genesis (the company that makes the speakers he was delivering) shirt and told me that whoever had loaded his vehicle must have looked at the order wrong and gave him an extra set of speakers to deliver that weren't ordered. However, if he went back to work with the extra speakers, his boss would simply keep them and the mistake would never go noticed by the mother company or whatever. So this guy figured that instead of take the chance of his boss getting the free stuff, he would try to offer it to random people he ran into on his way back to work in hopes that they would give him something in return (I assume monetary compensation). Before he even finished his story, I had the strangest sensation come over me that this guy had probably stolen these things, or that his story wasnt 100% factual and that there was more to it that he was leading on. So instead of even entertaining the thought of "so what, it's not like I'm ever going to get tracked if I buy these off of him," I simply told him that I wasn't interested and went about my way. Something just did not feel right about the situation, but it was nothing that he said, or that I saw, or anything of the sort. I do believe that it was the spirit whispering me to not even get involved and to let this man go on about his day. 

Sure that can be chalked up to having a "conscience" or what have you, but it was more meaningful than the notion to "keep the commandments and dont sin" type of urging. We all know what it feels like to debate within ourselves about whether or not to tell a lie, to cover up something we shouldn't have done or to admit it, and so forth. Those are the daily struggles we have, and we don't need to be told what goes on inside of us when those come up. This seemed to be a bit more. It was more of a "don't even think about hearing this guy out, nothing good can possibly come of it" type of prompting. And that was unmistakably the spirit talking to me.

I imagine that being in tune with the promptings of the spirit more often than not is going to be a life long process. But one that will certainly be worth it. Because really, aren't we spirits trapped inside of a body after all? Let's let our spirits do the talking and the walking for once. It'll sure be interesting to see where it leads us.