"And behold, it came to pass that Laban was angry, and thrust him out from his presence; and he would not that he should have the records. Wherefore, he said unto him: Behold thou art a robber, and I will slay thee."
1 Nephi 3:13
You know, this is a hard situation. Your dad (a prophet) tells you to do something that God has asked you to do... you try in good faith to accomplish it, and you utterly fail. That stinks. It is hard not to have some doubts at this point. We get kind of mumbly. Wait... er... but ... God said so? You might not even be sure of that at that moment, because when God asks you to do something... aren't you supposed to be able to DO it? All this to say that this story makes me think that we probably give up *way* too quickly sometimes. It's like some of the settlers I read about who were settling Arizona after being commanded to by Brigham Young. They were in the desert with no water for too long, and they almost died. Finally they just all got down on their knees and prayed for water. ... And they got some. They were thankful, filled up their water supplies and came back. When they got back, Brigham Young listened to the story, and then asked a man in his office what he would have done in those circumstances. The man said that he would have continued, and prayed again. :) ... That guy is the guy who ended up accomplishing the task. Sometimes I think we do the same thing. We listen to God, and we try once, and when it doesn't work, we assume that we heard wrong... that God really didn't ask that, because we tried and it didn't work. But here in the Book of Mormon it took a lot of creativity and time and some divine intervention to get there. We need to be willing to really invest in what God asks of us, and not give up at the first setback. Not saying it is easy... I quit too quickly myself. Just that I am going to work on this today... and I invite you to do the same. :)
1 Nephi 3:13
You know, this is a hard situation. Your dad (a prophet) tells you to do something that God has asked you to do... you try in good faith to accomplish it, and you utterly fail. That stinks. It is hard not to have some doubts at this point. We get kind of mumbly. Wait... er... but ... God said so? You might not even be sure of that at that moment, because when God asks you to do something... aren't you supposed to be able to DO it? All this to say that this story makes me think that we probably give up *way* too quickly sometimes. It's like some of the settlers I read about who were settling Arizona after being commanded to by Brigham Young. They were in the desert with no water for too long, and they almost died. Finally they just all got down on their knees and prayed for water. ... And they got some. They were thankful, filled up their water supplies and came back. When they got back, Brigham Young listened to the story, and then asked a man in his office what he would have done in those circumstances. The man said that he would have continued, and prayed again. :) ... That guy is the guy who ended up accomplishing the task. Sometimes I think we do the same thing. We listen to God, and we try once, and when it doesn't work, we assume that we heard wrong... that God really didn't ask that, because we tried and it didn't work. But here in the Book of Mormon it took a lot of creativity and time and some divine intervention to get there. We need to be willing to really invest in what God asks of us, and not give up at the first setback. Not saying it is easy... I quit too quickly myself. Just that I am going to work on this today... and I invite you to do the same. :)
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