“And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” (1 Nephi 3:7)
I find myself coming back to Nephi often. 1 Nephi – the chapters I have read most often in the BOM as I repeatedly resolve to read more and then get lost in the Isaiah chapters or in the middle of Alma somewhere. But there is so much to be learned from Nephi and his faith and courage. Nephi ACTS. He trusts His Father in Heaven so completely that he just goes and does without questioning how or why. And even with that great faith and trust things don’t come easy for him. He has to travel in the wilderness for a long time and it is HARD. It took 3 tries for him to get the plates from Laban and required him to kill someone, which he really did not want to do. He had to mine ore, build a ship from nothing, sail across a sea without a map or any idea how to sail. He got tied up and beaten up by his brothers countless times. He had great faith and knew that God would provide, but that didn’t make his days EASY. And he was ok with that. He did the work. The HARD work. Every day.
Life is hard folks. Even when things are going well, it is a lot of hard work. It was designed that way to refine us and give us knowledge and experience. But God will work it out for you – it still won’t be easy along the way, but in the end His will will out. And His greatest desire is for our ultimate joy. So hang in there and keep working through the hard. And if it seems like a lot, remember it could be worse… you could be eating raw meat in the wilderness and not have any idea where you were going or how to get there while your brothers beat you up every other day. 😉
Meditation and Journaling Prompt: What are the hard things you are working through right now? How can you lean into the Lord?