Getting Out of the Box

There's this thing they do in Japan where they grow watermelon inside of a box and they come out cube shaped. They end up being very interesting to look at, much more expensive than a round watermelon, and in order to get their cube shape they have to harvest them early so they don't actually have much value as a food product. Satan wants to keep us inside a box and have our potential bound by the chains of hell. When we are convinced that we can't repent, or we don't need to repent, those are the chains of hell squeezing us into unnatural shapes. Every time he convinces us that we do not need to repent, he is telling us that we don't need to grow anymore. We're good in this cube shape. We look cool. So what if we aren't of any value as a fruit anymore? Sins lock us into a box, strangle us with the chains of hell, halt our growth and progression. Look at addiction. There are an infinite variety of ways to experience happiness and pleasure, but addiction narrows that down to just one way, and that way is treacherous because each time provides less and less pleasure, and brings more and more pain. Look at anger. There are whole shelves of bookstores and libraries dedicated to the art and science of negotiation, but when we give into anger there is only one way of getting what we want, and it always causes more problems than it solves. Look at fear. To a man or woman with courage, the whole world is open to them, but when we give into fear, we start hiding in smaller and smaller boxes. "And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the chains of hell which encircled them about, were they loosed? I say unto you, Yea, they were loosed, and their souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love. And I say unto you that they are saved." (Alma 5:9). When we repent and obtain forgiveness, the Savior helps us out of the box, he takes the chains off us, and our souls are free to expand once more and sing the song of redeeming love. We are allowed to grow to what we were meant to be.