As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as the “Mormon” Church) and a student of Brigham Young University, I was reading my scriptures a few days ago when I turned to a passage in the Book of Mormon. Although I’ve read through this chapter a few times, I saw an important lesson that I had never noticed before.
Working productively drives away negative thinking.
The chapter was written by a man named Nephi—a native of Jerusalem around 600 B.C., who left the city before it destroyed (as depicted in 2 Kings). After leaving Jerusalem, Nephi and his family lived in the wilderness for many years. During this time Nephi’s family experienced a lot of hardships, and in this particular chapter the men had broken their bows and arrows, which helped them catch food for their families. As Nephi and his brothers watched their wives go hungry, many of them began to complain or murmur. As Nephi observed his brothers and his father “murmur exceedingly because of their sufferings and afflictions in the wilderness” he realized that they were not accomplishing anything productive, their negative murmuring was just making them more miserable and frustrated (1 Nephi 16:20). Upon realizing this Nephi made a conscious decision to remember all the ways God had blessed him instead of focusing on his current hardships.
In my life, I have—metaphorically—been in the exact same situation that Nephi and his family experienced. There have been times where my expectations were not met and I felt extremely disappointed and depressed. Sometimes I chose to dwell on my disappointment and other times I was able to separate myself enough from the situation to realize that things would not always be bad as they were in that moment. From personal experience I know that when I don’t allow myself to focus on the things that didn’t work out, I am able to start moving forward much more quickly as I come to accept the outcome of the situation.
Another thing that really stood out to me in the chapter was that while Nephi’s family was busy complaining about their hardships, Nephi refused to waste his time. Instead of centering all of his energy on murmuring, Nephi immediately began searching for ways to overcome his hardship. When I have faced similar situations I’ve found that choosing not to dwell on the negative not only helps me feel better, but it also empowers me to find a different, sometimes better outcome, than I originally hoped for.
Through prayer we can feel God’s love for us and avoid negative thoughts.
As I was reading this chapter again, I thought about how much better the world would be if everyone possessed Nephi’s ability to remain optimistic and diligent towards finding a solution. One of the reasons I think the world is not like that is because so many don’t have the knowledge that God will take care of them when they find themselves stranded in situational wilderness. Through personal study and prayer I can confirm that God is mindful of all of us and He will take care of us. He cares about our experiences and He hurts when we are in pain. However, I also know that God will not intervene where He is not invited. If we become so overwhelmed with our hardships like Nephi’s brothers were and we refuse to ever ask the Lord for guidance, He will not force his input upon us. Nevertheless, if we make a deliberate choice to include God in our lives and ask for his help, I have found that people are able to endure their hardships more gracefully and are able to get through them more quickly.
By Becca E.
Becca is an English Teaching major at BYU from Weatherford, Texas. She is an avid Harry Potter fan who loves tacos, and who likes to pretend that she speaks Latin.
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