The first is how the Lord prepares me for future experiences, opportunities, and stewardship. But my preparation is contingent on my willingness to respond to His call. I learned something today that I have decided to call, in tribute to Nephi, "The Law of Go and Do."
In the story of the Brass Plates, Nephi was told where to GO to get the plates (back to Jerusalem), but he was not told how to DO it. It took a couple of tries until the Spirit intervened and gave Nephi explicit instructions for the plates to finally be acquired.
In the story of the Broken Bow, Nephi, finding himself and his family without food, decides that sitting around starving to death isn't they way he wants to die, so he forms a bow in with to find food (the DO part). Then, Nephi asks his father where he needs to go to find the food (the GO part).
Finally, we come to the story of the Ship Builder. To me, it is the culmination of the "go and do." Nephi, in this part of his leave-home-live in the wilderness-find-the-promised-land experience, is not only told how to build is ship, but is shown how to forge the tools wherewith to make the ship, how to get his brothers to help (quite shocking, if you ask me), and how to navigate through the waters to the promised land. All of this ultimately prepares Nephi to be a spiritual leader and founding colonizer for the entire Nephite civilization.
These instructive stories teach me that sometimes the Spirit will merely direct where I need to go; other times, the Spirit will direct me as what to do; and sometimes, I will be told what I should say and shown what to do.
The trick is to keep on going and doing, just as He asks.
* * *
The second point of pondering for me today has been that word murmur, found 30 times in the Book of Mormon, 20 of those in 1 and 2 Nephi! Murmur means "an expression of discontent by grumbling."
And I know where grumbling leads. Murmuring makes my heart see everything as an annoyance. Especially God's commandments. Too hard to do.
So here's the thing. Laman and Lemuel had some very legit questions regarding the things Lehi saw in his dream. I believe they very much wanted to know what their father's dream meant and how it affected them, just like Nephi did. But the difference was, Laman and Lemuel did not want to pay the price of knowing for themselves.
Nephi wrote that Lehi "truly spake many great things unto them, which were hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord; and they being hard in their hearts, therefore they [meaning Laman and Lemuel] did not look unto the Lord as they ought."
So 1 Nephi 15 is the watered-down version of the explanations to their questions from Nephi, the one who paid the price to know the grandeur of Lehi's vision. In essence, it is the second explanation (e.g. second witness) given to us about what Lehi's dream means.
And so, relevant to me, in this day of prophetic revelation, I incorporated that idea into the 9th Article of Faith, as a reminder for me to look with an eye of faith, to inquire of God, and look to Him in every thought (doubt not, fear not).
I believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and I believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God that will be hard to be understood unless I inquire of the Lord.
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