Daily Scripture Challenge
Day One: 1 Nephi, Chapters 1-4
I am not sure what it means, but when I read books or watch
movies, I often find myself fascinated with the villain. Even as a child, there
was something curiously likable about Captain Hook, the White Witch, Darth
Vader-is that normal, or should I be worried?
As I have gotten older, that attraction has turned into
understanding. Not that I relate to destroying planets or wreaking havoc, but -in
a really well written villain- there is humanity hidden somewhere. In my
favorite villains, you can see hints of how a perfectly normal person, when driven
by revenge or pain or vanity, transforms into a villain. This decline into evil
is seen in real-life “villains” as well, though they never have the charm of
the made-up ones. In the early chapters
of the Book of Mormon we meet one such person: Laman.
Life must have been good for Laman, the scriptures mention
land, gold, silver, and precious things that the family owned[1].
And then, seemingly out of the blue,
they have to leave all that behind and go live in the wilderness because their
father, Lehi, was told to do so in a dream. Naturally, Laman and his brother Lemuel
are none too pleased. I can’t say I
would feel much differently. The problem is that Laman refuses to figure out
for himself if his father’s dream was from God or not. Without that conviction,
how could he see it as anything but giving up his life to follow the “foolish
imaginations”[2] of
his father? It is as the verse says, “And
they did murmur because they knew not the dealings of the God who had created
them.” [3]
Not long after they leave Jerusalem, Lehi has another dream
asking his sons to return to retrieve some geological records from a wealthy and
powerful man, Laban. Everything that could go wrong, does. Yet at the same
time, the brothers are given heavenly aide and are able to obtain the records.
But even angelic visitations[4],
don’t quite seem enough to convince Laman that his father is lead by God.
How often is this true for us? If we sincerely want to
follow God, there will be difficult choices we will have to make. We may have
to sacrifice things that seem important. We may not understand everything at
once. But if we, like Laman, refuse to seek guidance and confirmation from God, we may not only deny ourselves
the peace that only God can give[5],
but our lack of faith may lead us to sin. In Laman’s case, his complaining
turns to violence, then disobedience and finally a division in which he cuts
his family off from their faith all together and (spoiler alert) it results in war
and death between the two groups for generations. Imagine if Laman had humbled himself and
searched for truth. How different could his life had been? Or his children’s
lives?
What things are there in our lives that cause us to stumble
on our path?
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