Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Obedience like Nephi and Lehi

There is a lot of things in just the first few chapters of Nephi about obedience. No wonder the Book of Mormon starts with the story of Lehi's family: Heavenly Father knew that new learners of the Gospel and Church may struggle with obedience to the new commandments the missionaries teach them.

For example, 1 Nephi 2:2 has Lehi receiving the commandment to depart into the wilderness. Then in verse 3, it says simply that "he was obedient unto the word of the Lord, wherefore, he did as the Lord commanded him." Simple as that. So great! And in verse 4, we see the Lehi's actions matched his willingness, because "he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness." These verses show that no matter what, Lehi was willing to give up his possessions in order to obey the Lord, no matter what. It doesn't say anything about why the Lord commanded him to depart into the wilderness. Lehi probably didn't know the reason. But that didn't matter to him. He only knew what the Lord wanted, and he followed through with it.

Then Nephi's example later in that chapter shows that Nephi may have struggled with being obedient to the commandment Lehi had received from God. So Nephi prayed for a soft heart so that he could "believe all the words which had been spoken by [his] father" (verse 16). So, when we receive a commandment and we don't agree/understand it or want to obey it, we can pray for soft hearts and understanding so that we can obey that commandment. Nephi had faith and humility, and thus obedience was easier for him.

Then in chapter 3, Nephi is so determined to obey God and retrieve the plates that he didn't give up after two failures, at which his and his brothers' lives were in danger. Instead, he had faith and knew that (eventually) the Lord would provide a way. And He did. Nephi trusted to be led by the Spirit, "not knowing beforehand the things which [he] should do" (1 Nephi 4:6) and that he was...led by the Spirit. He was obedient, yet again, to another difficult commandment, to kill Laban. And he did so, trusting in the Lord. This must have strengthened his faith because he promised Zoram after that that "surely the Lord had commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord?" (verse 34).

Really good examples. I love the Book of Mormon. Really, there is no reason ever to be disobedient.

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