“being
exceedingly young”
-how old
would this suggest: twelve, fourteen… probably not much older than that. It is certainly possible that in early youth
a boy could quickly grow to be “large in stature”.
-the very
young have frequently been called upon to do great things for the Lord. In addition to Nephi, consider:
David:
represented all of Israel when he fought the great warrior Goliath. Like Nephi, David’s strength was in his
innocent and untainted faith in God.
Moroni: the second Book of Mormon prophet is nearly
an exact character copy of the second o last Book of Mormon prophet. Mormon was equally youthful when he was
recognized for his soberness and his tremendous faith.
2,000
Lamanite young “stripling” warriors:
these did not have any military experience but they had been raised with
a tremendous legacy of faith.
Joseph
Smith: considering all the previous
examples from scripture, should we really be surprised that God would choose a
fourteen year old boy as the mouthpiece to reveal Himself and restore the
gospel through?
The young may lack experience but that may be the exact
reason why they are able to do such great things. They have not yet accomplished anything by
their own genious or efforts. Their
source of strength is their reliance on God.
Their faith is unmitigated by recognized self-limitations or a rational
worldview. Children are rarely
skeptics. Doubt and reliance on our own
strength only comes with sufficient experience.
“having great desires to know of the
mysteries of God…”
-where or
how is this great desire born? Where
does it come from? Nephi had this great
desire but clearly Laman and Lemuel did not.
Desire leads to action! We can,
therefore, identify what are desires are by inspecting our actions. A person who shows very little spiritual
actions or actions that draw us near to God we can be sure that such a person
has very little desire to know about or be like God. Lucifer uses desires –strong natural desires
that can compel us to certain behaviors- to dictate behavior. A synonym for desire –its natural or temporal
manifestation- is addiction. Physical
desires are quite easy to cultivate but spiritual desires are frequently
contrary to the nature of the body. One
way of viewing this life is a struggle between the phsycial desires and the
spiritual desires: a battle to see if the
body will rule the spirit or if the spirit will rule the body.
-all the
great men and women of the scriptures had this desire in common. They then pursued a common course of action:
We are given
here a whole wealth of insight:
1. The
above things acted as a process; one led to the next. For example, his desires to know God led him
to pray unto Him and (of course) if we pray we get an answer. Hence we can also measure the degree to which
we want to know God, I mean to really develop an intimate relationship, by the
degree to which we talk (pray) to Him.
The “average” nightly 2 minute ho-hum prayer is not going to cut
it. This is why the saying “people come
to know God in their extremities and trials” is true,… because people really
pray (turn to) God in their extremities.
2. Nephi
gives us a proven formula about having the experiences like he did. It is as simple, yet as difficult, as the
things above.
3. We
are also shown that, by inference, Laman and Lemuel rebelled because they did
not follow the steps that led to “I did not rebel.” I would assume that one thing they did not do
was “pray”. Oh how we should watch out
and make sure that we do pray.
Nephi: proactive, "do it", action!
Sam: passive follower
“the mysteries
of God”
-what
are these? It is nothing less than to
know God’s mind, how he thinks, what he is like and who we ar Why are these things “mysteries”? Is it because God does not want us to know
these things? More likely it is because
we, at our current state of nature, cannot understand them. God wants us to know all things, especially
things about him. We came to earth to
gain knowledge through experience. He
wants us to know all things!
“wherefore I did
cry unto the Lord”
-prayer
is a great key that unlocks the mysteries of God. The greater our mastery of effective prayer,
the more we will qualify for the mysteries of God.
“he did visit
me”
-will the
Lord visit us? If not, why? If so, how?
“and did soften
my heart that I did believe"
-here is
one of the great unspoken and inferred truths about Nephi and, by extension,
about us. Nephi was not born some sort
of spiritual prodigy. He was not altogether
different than many of us. The very fact
that he admits that his heart needed softening suggests that he struggled with
the course his father was pursuing. He
was, perhaps, resistant to the dramatic change and trajectory of his life. Did he, previous to this moment, not believe
in the claims of his father? Did he
protest against his father and God’s directives in his young life? We do not know for sure. This we do know, that he had an experience
that caused some degree of change and was of such significance that he could
identity it, in his later years, as a turning point in his life.
-how does
the Lord “soften” man’s heart? What is
the catalyst that brings about the softening?
Is it His majesty contrasted against our weakness and rudimentary
condition? Can we have a similar
softening effect on others? What would
cause others to be softened? The way we
talk, the way we treat them, simply our presence? Why does God have this influence and, largely
speaking, we do not? Or is it a feature of
the observer/participant? For example,
one who would come into the presense of God would be profoundly touched while
another would hardly recognize, much less be affected, by God’s influence. Nephi stands as a perfect example of this
receptiveness while Laman and Lemuel are examples of having similar brushes
with heaven and yet are impacted very little.
Their hearts were, in fact, gradually made harder and less permeable.
“rebel against
him like unto my brothers."
-how much
sadness has been brought by children who rebel against the teachings and values
of their parents? Rebellion against
parents, especially at a point in development between the ages of twelve and
twenty, had grown to become a cultural expectation. This age of adolescence and young adulthood
is a time of growing independence.
Maturity brings a natural level of autonomy and reflection. Satan eagerly seizes upon this natural stage
and twists healthy independence into rebellion.
He turns the questioning of authority into definance of authority. These actions appear to span many eras and
cultures since they are easily visible in Jaredite times, in ancient Isreal (as
evidenced in Lehi’s family) and clearly in the technological modern era. One
balance to this trend is the commandment to honor thy father and thy
mother. There is a distinct difference
between disagreeing with a father or mother and rebellion against them. Rebellion is an ugly transgression on its own
but it is also a sinful violation of one of the ten foundations of
Judeo-Christian orthodoxy.
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