On sin, keeping the commandments, etc.

Can you just picture it? Before the creation of Earth and this great journey, God decided to sit down and make up some rules that all of his children were to abide by. "Let's see... should I allow lying or not? How about indiscriminate sex? Hmmm... should stealing be allowed? How about gay marriage? R-rated movies? How about PG?" And so on and so on. And thus we have the commandments we have.

NOT.

There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven ... upon which all blessings are predicated -- and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to the laws upon which that blessing is predicated.

Get it?

It's not up to us, or up to God even, for that matter. It's as simple as karma, almost. We are given these commandments, not as arbitrary rules to see if we'll be good boys and girls or not, but because these are the instructions. They are almost like a road map... If you want to travel from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, there is a road you should take. Sure, you can get there by going up I-5 to Sacramento, then east into Nevada and finally southeast to Las Vegas, but you'd get there a lot faster by going up I-15 straight into Vegas. There's no other way about it.

To have what we want, in this life or the next, we need to follow certain rules. Visualize this, if you will. Imagine there are, floating all around us in the air, tiny particles of energy (and there are, but try to picture them). Each is charged with either a positive charge or a negative charge, to varying degrees. Imagine the positive charges are yellow and the negative charges are blue. There are bright blue charges and there are lighter blue charges. There may even be charges that tend towards green. There are bright yellow ones and light yellow ones. And they're all floating around. Now imagine how each of these feels. The bright yellow positive charges feel good. People who are generally happy and -- you guessed it -- positive people are surrounded by this yellow energy. People who are depressed or negative most of the time are predominantly surrounded by this blue energy (again, the colors are just for illustration purposes).

Which color surrounds you? And can you do anything about it? YOU BET YOU CAN!

You see, when you violate one of these laws upon which blessings are predicated, you're producing some of the blue energy. And like attracts like (birds of a feather?), so you will find yourself surrounded by this blue energy, which makes it impossible to truly feel good (as someone once said, "Wickedness never was happiness.")

On the other hand, when you do something positive -- like perform an act of kindness or service -- you're producing (and therefore also attracting) this yellow -- or positive -- energy, and you feel good. You can't help but feel good.

It can even begin in your thoughts. If you pay attention to the thoughts that go through your head, you can tell if they are yellowish or blue-ish thoughts, if you're really paying attention to them. You can even tell what kinds of energy surround people you know. Just "look" for it. Maybe not with your physical eyes, but see how your energy level is affected by the people you come in contact with. Listen to the words they say. Words -- their very vibrations in the air -- carry with them positive or negative energy. Pay attention to the words you use. They have an awesome power to attract positive and negative energy.

And thus the revealed word of God -- scripture, if you will -- is simply instructions on how to be happy. If our devine destiny is to become like God, and God knows how to do that (after all, who can tell someone best how to be most like you, but you yourself, right?), then maybe we should listen to what he has to say. Not because these are the "rules" or the "test" to see if we'll be "good", but because that's simply the way it is.

I hope that made sense. Comments are welcome and appreciated.