The Dangers of Pride

Any of you who know much about the Book of Mormon, have heard about the pride cycle. For those who don't, I have included a picture and i'll briefly describe it.  The pride cycle is the pattern that the people in the Book of Mormon often follow.  They start out as a righteous people, and because they are righteous, they recieve blessings from God.  After revieving blessings, they think they are better than their bretheren and become prideful.  Because of the pride, they begin to be wicked and sin.  This sinning leads God to destroy what they have until they have again become humble and willing to listen to the word of God.  Then the cycle repeats itself.  In class, we went more in depth than I have before, and learned more about this cycle and the other cycles within it.  Our teacher referred to this main cycle as the Terrestrial cycle. It is the medium ground.  Eventually, the people go back to being good, but they don't stay their for long.  On the other hand, some people stay in the bad half of the cycle.  After their pride has led to wickedness and destruction, they are angry with God and go back to being prideful.  This is considered the Telestial cycle.  The cycle we want to be in is the Celestial cycle.  This means that after we are righteous and blessed, we go straight to being humble and trusting in the lord.  Seeing this drawn out was interesting.  It made me want to make sure I never reach the telestial part of the cycle.  Pride is difficult to avoid, but if we make sure to recognize that without God, we are nothing, we will be able to remain humble.