Depending on how familiar you are with social media, you may or may not know the term “hashtags” or how hashtags are used. Briefly, hashtags — designated by the # symbol — are used to group together social media postings and photos under a single heading for easy retrieval.

For example, if you open a web browser and type #alma41, you will see a varied collection of photos and commentaries that people (from various faiths) have posted relating to Alma 41. This article will show up in that list as well. If you type #TCOJC, you will see a wide variety of photographs, posted (mostly) by members of our Church.

In Alma 41, Alma defines the word “restoration” as a process that will occur when we stand before God at the end of our lives. Similar to hashtags, it will be a retrieval of events that have been categorized in various ways during our lives:

“The meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, or carnal for carnal, or devilish for devilish — good for that which is good; righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful.” (Alma 41:13)

The primary reason that Alma is sharing this with his son, who had recently been caught up in sin, is to impress upon him the importance of staying on the right path going forward. He adds that God does not intend to “take a thing of a natural state and place it in an unnatural state, or to place it in a state opposite to its nature” (verse 12).

In other words, if we type #TCOJC in a web browser, we would not expect to see images of the devil appearing. Likewise, if we were to type some hashtag related to devil worship, we would not expect to see photos of our Church members popping up.

So, if we desire to dwell in the kingdom of God for eternity, let’s make sure we begin with events that can be assigned hashtags of #faith, #repentance, #baptism, and #HolyGhost. As we live life, let’s do our best — through the direction of the Holy Ghost — to record events that can be assigned hashtags of #good, #righteous, #just, and #merciful. There are of course many other good ones as well.

There are also plenty of evil hashtags too. We won’t list those here so this article won’t be linked to them. Let’s be careful that the events of our life aren’t linked to them either.

If the end of our life can be categorized under #EnduredToTheEnd, then our soul will be included in the hashtag #Paradise. Then, on resurrection day, when God consults the hashtag #LambsBookOfLife, our name will appear, and our eternal home will be categorized by the hashtags #Heaven, #KingdomOfGod, and #EternalHappiness.

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.