Why Does Repentance Make You Prosper?

We already discovered that the rapid Nephite cycles of repentance and sin make more sense when you realize that repentance is not total righteousness and falling back into wickedness is not total depravity. Each one just represents a course change. Just like with individual people, a society that is objectively in a bad moral state could be described as repenting and worthy of blessings if it has recently rejected some evil and is trying to do better, whereas a society in quite a high moral state is still falling into wickedness if it has recently discarded some good thing or embraced some new evil thing.

If you looked back over your last few years, it would not surprise you at all if the chronicler of the Book of You described you as repenting and righteous one year and wicked the next. It would not surprise you if the Book of You described you that way on a monthly, a weekly, or even perhaps a daily basis. Not that you have been transfigured and not that you were depraved, but just that you have seasons of change for the better and seasons of change for the worse. (Let the first predominate. I.e, let God prevail.)

But how does applying a common-sense understanding of repentance to the Nephites explain the rapid changes in their prosperity and levels of conflict each time they make a spiritual change for the better or for the worse? Is God just putting a thumb on the scales?

The short answer is yes. Literally the rains fall better on a penitent people. They receive more insight from the Holy Ghost on how to respond to problems or how to avert them.

The longer answer is still yes, and includes direct action from the Godhead, but also includes a secular explanation from natural law. A society’s spiritual, cultural, social, and material resources are usually fully used up by the society’s operations. Which makes sense. Which means in a normal situation everything feels ‘tight.’ Everything is claimed in one way or another. But when a society repents, even in a small way, it means some resources get freed up. (Again, reminder that we aren’t just talking about material resources). Some level of effort that was being put to pure waste through sin is now available for other purposes. Some level of zero-sum or even negative sum games because people couldn’t trust each other has been resolved. Which means for a short time at least there is growth and a surplus of resouces. It feels abundant. When a society commits to a new level of sin, the opposite is the case. Some level of resource that was available before has just evaporated. The result is often an ugly and chaotic struggle to determine who is going to end up with the short end of the stick. Underlying growth trends can mask this to a degree, but only to a degree. In short, prosperity or poverty isn’t necessarily a matter of static material wealth but is a matter of growth or recession. Just like bankruptcy isn’t tied to any specific income level but rather to whether the expenses exceed the income.

Similarly, when you as an individual repent you usually free up resources, whether it be emotional or spiritual or time or actual material resources that you were wasting or actually using in self-destructive ways.  The elaborate structure of self-deception and self-justification has collapsed a bit and now there are these building blocks to play around with.  You are prosperous.  You have more than you need.