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Levels of Offendedness

Yoda on Star Wars warns about the path to the dark side.  He states "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering."  I've applied this knowledge to my current Jedi skills and learned that there are other paths to the dark side.   One of them is being offended.  I've identified 8 levels of being offended as follows:

Offended
Off-ended
Appall-off-ended
Depth-ended
Deep-ended
Sunk-ended
Cemented
Stuck-ended


Be aware of being offended!

Spiritual Dashboard (Liahona)

I was recently listening to 1 Nephi chapter 16 on the way to work the other day.  It talks about the Liahona.  It gives us enough detail to know what it was and what it did.  It's also interesting that the Liahona is not described in intricate detail.  Below are verses where Nephi mentions specific details about the Liahona: 

Verse 10 points out that there are two spindles and that one of the two pointed the way for Lehi and his family to go.  (First Spindle)

Verse 26 points out there there were writings on the ball that Lehi and his family were able to read. (Message Center)


Verse 28 points out that the pointers worked according to faith and diligence. (Second Spindle)

It occurred to me that the Liahona is more than just compass of curious workmanship.  To me it appears to be more of a spiritual dashboard and navigation system.  The first spindle Nephi describes points the direction in which to go.  The second spindle appears to be a gauge of faithfulness and diligence.  In addition to the two spindles are the writings that can be seen and read. 

Knowing these three things got me thinking.  We see many aspects that are described about this curious ball workmanship through modern technology.  Dashboards show the appropriate gauges to let you know how your vehicle is peforming.  Dashboards also have message centers stating which services are coming due for routine maintenance.  Navigation is built in so we know where to go if we don't know how to reach our destination. 

Is it any coincidence that Heavenly Father is always giving us ways to determine how we're doing, performing, and if we're headed in the right direction?  We don't have a ball of curious workmanship but the our Heavenly Father works through curious ways to guide us.  Heavenly Father leaves much of the traveling up to us but if our faith and diligence are in line with our Heavenly Father's will we'll get to where we need to go.