1 Nephi 4

Friday, June 21, 2013

In the first verse “And it came to pass that I spake unto my brethren, saying: Let us to up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord,” we can see that Nephi tries his hardest to continuously have faith in the Lord despite his brothers and the other difficult circumstances. I feel like I can relate to Nephi in that my parents and family are constantly talking bad about the Church. It is difficult to be faithful to the Lord and to trust that everything will turn out alright when it seems so bad. One of my favorite scriptures comes from Doctrine and Covenants and it says “My son [or daughter], peace be unto thy soul: thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes” (D&C 121:7-8). I think Nephi realized, as we all should, that our situation is only temporary and that things will get better.

He then tells his brothers that they have seen an angel and that angel confirmed their actions to be correct, so why should they doubt? Doubt is like a disease. Once it starts it is difficult to stop, as you begin to question things to the point of where you stop believing and lose faith at the slightest challenges. I think this is what has happened to Laman and Lemuel. The started doubting so much that now they cannot stop.

In verse 6, Nephi tells us “And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.” This is while Nephi was going to Laban’s house. Often times, we don’t know why Heavenly Father asks us to do something and usually, we don’t end up seeing the rewards and blessings for our actions until afterwards. Sometimes we don’t understand why we are told by Heavenly Father to do something. But we have to trust the Lord and have faith in Him, especially because He sees everything in the bigger picture whereas we only see the present.

In the Mormon message video series by Elder Bednar called Patterns of Light, we learn that the Lord often gives us just a little bit of knowledge to act on and when we do act upon this knowledge, we receive more. And the process repeats. I think Nephi realized this and trusted that the Lord had given him just enough knowledge to complete the task which he was given.

Nephi’s faith is once again challenged when he finds Laban drunk from wine. The Spirit tells Nephi that he needs to slay Laban even though Nephi’s heart tells him not to. The Spirit tells him that he needs to and Nephi remembers the words which the Lord had spoken to him earlier and proceeds to kill Laban. The reason Laban is slayed is because those who are wicked produce more who are wicked. They too are like a disease that needs to be diminished.

Those who are wicked like Laban and his servant greatly fear the Lord and want nothing to do with Him. I learned the hard way that a life without Heavenly Father actively in it is awful and not worth living. It truly does lead to nothing but misery.

Nephi testified of the Lord to Laban’s servant. The servant made an oath to Nephi saying that he would follow the ways of the Lord if his life was spared. Nephi spared the servant’s life and the servant joined their group.

Because of Nephi’s faith in the Lord, Nephi and his brothers got the plates of brass containing the genealogy records and made it safely back to their father. This, though, would not have happened if Nephi had not trusted and had faith in the Lord.