Connecting the Verses

Currently I'm in several religion classes. I'm taking Doctrine and Covenants with Ari and we are taking from Brother Holzapfel. Once a week, I go to a special studies class on Revelation taught by Brother Draper. Finally, for my students, including Book of Mormon. The story about the 116 pages is a wonderful illustration of how God uses all his resources to keep his plan on track. Lessons from all 3 classes connect to this, and were constantly coming to mind as I read.

After Martin Harris lost the pages, God's first revelation to Joseph reassures him that "The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught (D&C 3:1)." This pairs with a command God gave to Nephi, centuries earlier, to explain how and why he prepares his plans to be fail-safe. Anciently, Nephi wrote and Mormon retained through abridgments not one, but two records of the early Nephite and Lamanite history.

For God to have this ability to back up his plans, he has to have perfect knowledge of time to come. In the Book of Revelation, the script is in a surreal time because God sees what was, what is, and what will be in one eternal now. This does not mean agency is non-existent; it simply means that God sees where our agency will lead. In D&C 5:32, God tells Martin Harris what will happen if he fails to humble himself. This does not mean that Martin will choose that path, it only means that God knows the outcome of the choice.

Reading this, and seeing the connections makes it clearer to me what D&C 3:2 means. "For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said. therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round." God travels in a straight and narrow path, but that path encompasses the complete and "eternal round" of all time. He creates His plans within the framework of this path, then puts them into action in a world that exists in all time. We, the people who walk this path, only see a moment of now, and a sliver of what was, but our lives play into the eternal glory of all that is, was, and is to come. Although we cannot see it, God's plan is interlaced everywhere, and what may seem like a small choice (keeping two records) may create a major difference in some other time (a second version kept uncorrupted).