Hi, my name is Stuart and I’m a college student at Brigham Young University. I’m just starting here at BYU and it’s been a great experience so far. One of the classes I’m taking is a class on the Book of Mormon, which is a book of scripture studied mostly by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and it’s the reason many know us as Mormons. It’s an amazing book similar to the bible and I’ve read them many times but, as always, each time you read them you learn something different.
        This time a few things from the passage I’ve been reading stood out to me more than before. It’s right at the beginning of the book and it tells the story of a man named Lehi and his family. They lived in Jerusalem about the same time as the prophet Jeremiah and Lehi believed his teachings. One night he receives direction from the Lord that he should take his family and flee into the wilderness before the city was destroyed. So Lehi, being obedient, packs up his family and some essentials and heads off into the wilderness to he knows not what, leaving behind a large home filled with all the comforts of his day. After traveling around 200 miles he stops and sets up camp, with every intention of staying there until he got word from God what to do next.
        Reading this section I was struck by the enormous faith had by Lehi. I see myself as a pretty obedient guy but when I picture myself I wonder if just by having a dream I would be willing to leave behind everything, my home and comforts, food, friends, everything, to go camp in the desert and wash my clothes by hand. I imagine I would just tell myself it was a dream and continue with normal life, why would the Lord ask such a strange, unreasonable thing of me? I was intrigued by how Lehi could be so willing to up and go. He didn’t walk into a palace, it wasn’t a vacation for him, but he didn’t doubt that that’s what the Lord wanted from him. Later on he receives the command to send his sons all the way back to try to accomplish a seemingly impossible task. One, Nephi, goes about it with the same surety as his father while a few, Laman and Lemuel, gripe and repeatedly want to quit. At the end of the day, mostly because of Nephi’s persistence, they are able to do what the set out to do and return safely to their parents.
         My question then was how did they know so absolutely that they where doing the right thing? These weren’t everyday tasks they were being asked to do, they were huge and life changing decisions. Now, I’ve asked for guidance with big decisions before, but there has always been a process to it, it’s nearly always been something that I had time to think about. For Lehi it was a complete change of plans from one day to the next. So I thought about it and I came to realize that Lehi didn’t doubt the Lord because he knew His voice. As Christ says, He is the good shepherd and His sheep know Him.
        I bet Lehi had spent many years trying his best to follow the impressions the Lord gave him through the Holy Spirit and that during those years he had experiences where he felt impressed to do something that he didn’t understand. As he obeyed those impressions he would see the results and discover that it was the Lord’s guidance. He would gain confidence and the next time he would be more ready to obey that impression when it came. It’s a process I’ve seen in my own life. There have been times that I’ve gotten a feeling that I needed to do something, like call someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. Nearly every time that I’ve acted on those feelings I’ve come to find that that person needed to hear a kind word or something like that. They weren’t just random thoughts I’d had but the Lord trying to guide me for my benefit or someone else’s. Seeing that gave me confidence to act the next time I got a similar impression. I felt more able to recognize the Lord’s spirit guiding me and more willing to obey.
        Comparing Lehi’s situation to my own I could see how he was a real man. He really dedicated his life to following the guidance of the Lord, even when all reason would tell him it was crazy. Because I’ve read the Book of Mormon I know what great blessings Lehi and his family received for his willingness to obey. But at this point in the story he still didn’t know what was coming or how it was going to work out. He simply followed with faith. It’s another example to me that if we do our best to follow the Lord everyday, even when we don’t understand that he will protect us and everything will work out better than we could have planned.
Article written by Stuart M
Additional Resources: