I just had a really good insight during scripture study. I was reading in Helaman 5:24-25 about Nephi and Lehi being surrounded by fire in the prison. As I looked up the footnotes to the verses, I started to see a theme: if I am correct, visitations from the Lord are often accompanied by fire (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, Moses and the burning bush and the pillar of fire, Lehi's vision, the pillar of light in the First Vision, etc). I thought of the words "the Spirit of God like a fire is burning" from the hymn The Spirit of God. I realized that these verses show us what the Spirit does in our lives--when our lives are filled with the Spirit, we are spiritually protected. That is a simple truth, but it was amazing to make that connection during my studying. Also, the fire accompanied each of these people when they were conversing with the Lord. This painted a powerful image to me of the spiritual protection found in prayer. I have heard of the parable of the armor of God, but I like this parable of prayer as fire. It is so powerful!

P.S. I had a thought the other night...I want to start preparing to be a seminary teacher. The likelihood of it actually happening isn't very big, but at institute the other day, by a curious set of circumstances, I was led to think about being one some day. Either way, I feel like it would be a very powerful way to help me continue to progress spiritually and have something to work towards. One way I would like to prepare is by labeling all the quotes I put on here so that I can easily retrieve them later.