The Recirculated Waters of Righteousness

"And when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea, he spake unto Laman, saying: O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!" (1 Nephi 2:9)

I was reading Moroni chapter 7 last night. A lot of people who've read and who love the Book of Mormon will tell you that Moroni 7 is one of their favorite chapters ever. A lot of that lot of people will tell you that they especially love its latter verses. Rightly so -- those verses are beautiful and powerful, indeed. My life, too, has been positively impacted by those particular words, probably more than I can even say.

But last night, my mind was turned suddenly and unexpectedly by the tiniest verse -- number 7 -- towards the beginning of the chapter:

"For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness."

Why was I stopped in my tracks? The word "counted." The natural context of the sentence suggests that there's someone else who does the "counting." When a person "offereth a gift" to another person, there is a designated third party in charge of deeming whether that good work "counts" or not.

Moroni 7:12 -- five verses later -- says, "Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God..."

In Matthew chapter 25, where it describes a shepherd dividing his sheep from the goats, it says:

"Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

In my mind (and I think it may have been just last night that I first consciously noticed this dawn upon me), these two individual sections of scripture very clearly explain that God is where goodness and righteousness originate, and is where goodness and righteousness return.

On LDS.org I typed into the Search Scriptures search box, "God eternal round," and four specific verses in both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenants appeared onto the screen: Alma 37:12, D&C 35:1, D&C 3:2, and 1 Nephi 10:19. All four declare that God's course "is one eternal round." Because of what I was thinking and feeling last night as I was reading my scriptures, I am led to believe that "God's course is one eternal round" in more than one way.

My imagination has come up with a visual. I walk around Temple Square in Salt Lake City, and I notice how the water features have little signs poking up that say "RECIRCULATED WATER." Each water feature that runs via recirculated water has what's called a reservoir, from whence water gets pumped and later gets returned. Same location for both. I now like to think of the Lord as the great reservoir of an ever-cycling fountain of the absolute sweetest recirculating water of life and love. Visualizing all this helps me think about Him in this way in a pretty literal sense. It's pretty fun.

So how do we know if a good work we've done actually worked or not? How do we know if God "made it count" or not? If you flip back to Moroni 7, and scroll your eyes down to the classic final lines, you'll read in verse 47 that "charity is the pure love of Christ." And then if you hop back over to the Holy Bible --> New Testament --> 1 Corinthians 13, right off the bat you'll read how a person can basically do all things that are wonderful in nature, but if they do those things without the crucial underlying love of Christ within them, none of it really matters.

I firmly believe the principle to be true, that our works, if they are done without true charity, do not profit us anything (1 Cor. 13:3). Hopefully my previous words in this post help a little to give reason as to why I believe in this way. It is because I believe God is the reservoir of the recirculated-water feature of righteousness, ultimately and eternally; thus, I believe He has every right to accept back into His reservoir whatever incoming material that He will. He is the most proper judge of all.

As for the reason why our good works are to flow back up into God's reservoir, I don't necessarily think it's because God cannot function in His water-sending if we fail to send Him ours. That's where I see one slight, potential incongruity in the analogy between this spiritual recirculated-water feature and a tangible earthly one, such as the ones on Temple Square. God is the actual omnipotent source of all light, truth, and goodness. He is also more perfect than we can comprehend in the arena of selfless love for us, His children. Therefore, I believe the why behind our good works flowing into His store, is because of His love for us, His desire for us to have the happiest future possible, which is with Him in His kingdom forever.

I didn't think of this last night during my reading, but I thought of it later on today -- regarding the why: One angle at which to view this spiritual recirculated-water feature is to see our good works (e.g. sincere prayers of gratitude to Heavenly Father, keeping the commandments, exercising forgiveness, kindly deeds towards others) as our water traveling up to God, and when He gives His stamps of approval, the way He manifests that is by sending down His water to us in the form of appreciative blessings, which we may know we have received by way of our sensing of the gentle Holy Ghost touching our hearts, which hopefully will help us want to continue on in this exciting, rewarding, and joyful cycle. By remaining on course in this cycle, we are on the wonderful track towards becoming as clean and holy as He, and fit to dwell with Him for always. This is where Moroni 7:48 (the final verse of the chapter) comes into play:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen."

"This love" is charity, which is the "pure love of Christ," as was mentioned before. I like how, in modern times, the word "charity" is often synonymous with "service," which can often be synonymous with "good works." The charity with which we give of ourselves is meant to be given with...charity! Our charity, when we serve our fellowmen, is received by our God at the same time it is received by earthly brothers and sisters whom we serve. This is the kind of water God gives us through His constant mercy, guidance, and gifts. One of such gifts is the agency we've been given to learn what this kind of water is, how to obtain it, and how to turn it around and humbly offer it back to God. We can learn all this through personal revelation and through the Lord's prophets and servants, past and present.

In closing, I'd like to jump back to the word "righteousness" one more time. I tried my hand at the Search Scriptures search box again by writing in "Lord of righteousness," and approximately a gazillion results came up, and I looked through all of them, and my favorite thing I saw was what I shall now call one of my new favorite scriptures:

"In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jeremiah 23:6)

(Yup. That really is in all caps. Right there in the book itself. Awesome, no? YES.)

The Lord -- our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ -- glorifies and takes after His Father, and is what real righteousness really is! He is righteousness, and has provided us with a perfect pattern to follow in order to become as He is and eventually live with Him, our Heavenly Parents, and others in our lives whom we hold dearest and closest to our hearts.