I mentioned the parable of the ten virgins, how five became the brides to the groom and five did not. In the New Testament, I discovered 32 references to the word "become" and in The Book of Mormon, I found 91.
These are just a few examples:
"become ripened"
"become men of understanding"
"become as little children"
"become his sons and daughters"
"become high priests"
"become bright"
"become a tree"
"become as God"
"become new"
The word "become" means "to change into, to grow to be, to transform or convert". When something has been converted or transformed, it is changed forever! There is no returning to its formal state. A seed that has been transformed into a tree will never go back into being a seed.
In order for us to become the bride to the Bridegroom, He must win our heart. He must become our everything. We must want nothing more than to have Him in our life. He must be our focus and He must have our total attention. He must occupy our thoughts day and night and everywhere we go. We will desire nothing more than to please Him. All of this will come very naturally if He has truly won our heart, because that is what naturally happens when love is true!
When we truly love Him, we will unite our mind with His mind, our will with His will, our soul with His soul. We will experience a very real at-one-ment.
Sometimes this "becoming" will feel like forever, so long in fact that it will be painful, very painful. These things take time though. Everything that is worth living and dying for takes time. Time: is the great revealer, the glorious unveiler.
President Boyd K. Packer has testified, "Our lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices. Over the years these little choices will be bundled together and show clearly what we value."
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, "When Alma compared the word of God to a seed, he explained that the seed grows into a fruit-bearing tree gradually, as a result of our 'faith, and [our] diligence, and patience, and long-suffering.' It’s true that some blessings come right away: soon after we plant the seed in our hearts, it begins to swell and sprout and grow, and by this we know that the seed is good. From the very moment we set foot upon the pathway of discipleship, seen and unseen blessings from God begin to attend us.
But we cannot receive the fulness of those blessings if we 'neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment.'
Knowing that the seed is good is not enough. We must 'nourish it with great care, that it may get root.' Only then can we partake of the fruit that is “sweet above all that is sweet, and … pure above all that is pure” and 'feast upon this fruit even until [we] are filled, that [we] hunger not, neither shall [we] thirst."
The "place of becoming" is a journey. Find joy in it, because there is a glorious destination that awaits!-Alicia
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