A Heart to Obey

Reference: 1st Nephi Chapter 2

Sometimes it seems that obedience to small things is harder than obedience to large things. It is easier to imagine that a pilgrimage to pray at a holy site Jerusalem would offer better repentance than prayer in your own closet, or that the calling to do home teaching is less grandiose than a calling as mission president. It may be true that doing something great is easier than doing something small, but to do it right, I believe it’s only because of continual obedience to the small which has prepared us.

A new perspective

It’s easy to look at stories in scripture and underestimate their true impact by inadvertently applying our current world view, culture, and hindsight knowledge to them. For example, I moved a lot growing up and I questioned how Laban and Lemuel could be so faithless. Why couldn’t they just follow the prophet? Especially since he was their own dad! Just for fun I want to try retelling the tale of Lehi’s exodus from with a modern application in the hopes that it will lead to greater understanding.

One day your father comes to you and claims to have had a vision. He claims to have seen Jesus and possibly God the father and in the vision he was told that America was going to be destroyed if it didn’t repent. Not only that, but other people pop up all over the US and start writing blogs and posting You-Tube videos calling for America to repent or face God’s wrath. Your father feels inspired to join these others in prophesying the future destruction and starts going around town warning everyone. The membership of the church is divided on the issue but there is no “official” response from the first presidency or apostles and most of the members in your home ward are angry with your father because he doesn't automatically exclude church members in his call to repentance. One day dad comes home with a bloodied face and a few days later the death threats start appearing in the mailbox or through the window. Next he claims to have had another vision, that America WILL be destroyed but that God is going to preserve your family and lead them to a promised land on some undiscovered or at least unknown place. You grab your camping gear and leaving everything else you and your whole family goes backpacking into the mountains.

I’m going to stop here and look at this closer, although it might be fun to keep imagining about how you need to go back at get some sacred genealogy records and other important records from a very prominent and powerful LDS official who ends up getting killed in the process, or going back for your wife and how it’s not exactly an arranged marriage but there isn’t exactly a lot of choice either, or maybe about how your brother suddenly decides he is going to build a space ship! First I think I need to defend my analogy. My attempt is not to derive doctrine principles or present an analogy of what will happen, but I’m trying to explain how these events would have looked to us if we were there by using modern circumstances with which we are already familiar. One of the main differences is we have a prophet who also leads and directs the church organization. As far as I can tell, Lehi had appointed priests who ran and administered their religious operations with sporadic “Prophets” who popped up often out of nowhere, proclaiming God’s will. If such a situation where to occur today I don’t believe the first presidency would remain silent on the issue, but that is only a blessing that makes it easier for us. Lehi had to ask his family to believe on his word as well as some “mad men” that their society and culture were ignoring, ostracizing, and even murdering.

Murmurings

So now back to where I stopped the analogy, you have just left everything behind and followed your father into the mountains. How to you feel, and why do you feel that way? Laman and Lemuel are complaining that their father is crazy, and is acting on the “foolish imaginations of his heart.” In verse 12 and 13 it explains why: “…And they did murmur because they knew not the dealings of that God who had created them. Neither did they believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed according to the words of the prophets…” I can understand why it’s hard to believe Jerusalem would be destroyed, just as it is hard for me to imagine America being destroyed because some nutcase says so. Therefore, I’m going to focus on the first reason: not knowing the dealings of God.

It is great to be able to learn about God and his dealings through reading scriptures and going to church, and yet I’m sure that Lehi taught Laban and Lemuel, and so how could Nephi claim they didn’t know? One explanation is that learning something is different from knowing. There is a lot that we learn from teachers and scriptures but we only really know it’s true after we ask for and receive a testimony, or personally experience it. But I think that Nephi had even more in mind than a testimony of past event’s which his brothers lacked. One reason is that even if you believe the past events Lehi’s version was unique. We can call it an exodus since it follows a type of the exodus lead by Moses yet it was also different in many ways. Maybe Laman would have believed if they had first been in bondage to Egyptians, or if all if the children of Israel followed with them. Since it was different I think there is something specific that Nephi is getting at beyond a familiarity with the past. In fact Nephi shows us through his example.

The Softened Heart

“…wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words that had been spoken by my father; wherefore I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers.” 1Ne 2:16. Maybe Nephi didn’t immediately believe his father either but he knows how God deals with his creation: a loving father who can soften unbelieving hearts and teach us what is truth and false at an individual level.

I have experienced a softening of heart in such a manner in my own life. I loved my mission president. He knew the gospel, he knew the native people and history, he inspired obedience through love, and he was smart and inline with the handbooks about how we should perform the work. However, the last months of my mission a new mission president took over. He was very different. He seemed suspicious of us and demanded obedience rather than inspiring it. He taught odd and hard to understand principles and he didn't seem as smart. He also told us to do things completely opposite of how my first mission president taught us. One time he was using statistics to prove how finding people through free English classes would be more effective than any other method and I could directly see the numbers were painfully wrong. Many of the other old timers were complaining until they found themselves promoted into important leadership positions, but I could feel that they were still only halfheartedly following. I on the other hand I had statistical proof that English class was ineffective and hated teaching English as an excuse to “trick” people into listening to our gospel lessons more than anything. I didn’t trust my new president’s abilities and inspiration, and I wasn't given an important position to make it all better. I was torn between my desire to obey and trust God’s calling of the new president, and doing something I knew with an almost absolute surety wasn't the right way to do missionary work. I eventually found an answer through prayer, but first I had to pray that my heart would be softened. I realized that I was biased against following the answers I got if the answer was to teach English so first I prayed for a softened heart. After I was sufficiently humble I got the answer that to obey was what I should do, but also that I was right in some of my concerns. Seemingly trapped in a paradox I tried to do what I was told to wholeheartedly with an even greater conviction that it was really not the "best" way to do the work. It took some real softening and humility but eventually I had an English class ready, scheduled, advertised, and to my surprise, no students. I was sincerely trying my best to do it just like I was told but only a member showed up. We tried advertising harder and we got three students the next week, but to my surprise, instead of children we had adults. Not only that but they were all more interested in learning about our church than English! Instead of English we really taught gospel lessons with our member without resorting to "tricks" or false motives. I baptized one lady who attended and another one was almost ready at the time I went home. I still believe that teaching English isn't the best way to do missionary work, but that the more important lesson was learning to sustain a priesthood leader and I was blessed for that. I also gained firsthand experience of how God deals with his children, especially when faced with believing the unbelievable or impossible.

Knowing what to do is one thing but having the ability to accomplish it is something else. Knowing how to light a lantern doesn’t do any good if your lantern is empty when you need it most. If I hadn’t practiced obedience in those small hard things on my mission I would never have been able to be obedient in the trial that really tested my soul. “And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart.” 1Ne 2:19

Modern Application

With floods, fires, hurricanes, and more displacing people from their homes and causing destruction it doesn’t take a prophet to realize that it is important that we be prepared for disaster or emergency of any kind. Personal spiritual guidance could be the difference between life or death. I don’t believe my modern analogy is going to come to pass in my life, but I do believe that we will face equal if not even greater challenges that we can’t now imagine before Christ yet reigns on Earth. If the Book of Mormon is to teach us how to prepare for this then I would suggest that, not only do we need to know how to receive personal revelation, we need to learn to accept revelation with a softened heart. Not only directly to ourselves either, but fromt our prophet, bishop, father, or spouse. Me must learn to have our hearts softened so that we can know God’s will and follow it wholeheartedly, no matter how difficult or impossible that may seem.