O repent ye, repent ye! Why will ye die?
It's always been interesting to me that Nephi, the prophet in the Americas when Christ visited the Americas, mourned that he was placed in that time.
Here is a man who is the prophet of God in the American continent, and he does know Christ is about to come, but that hasn't happened yet, and what he really sees right now is just that things are going terribly. The people he is trying to love and save appear to be hopeless. The government has been taken over by those who will kill to achieve their purpose. And now is the time when leaders and men in power are just out for themselves. Times couldn't be more bleak, and he's the prophet in it all.
One could imaging what his demons were telling him. "You're a failure". "If you were only as good as (fill in the blank) then things would be so much better". "You're letting God down". "God has to have given you the gifts to do your job, but somehow you still manage to be a horrible leader and prophet". "What would Christ say to his prophet who has so utterly failed him? You might as well quit now so you don't screw it up even more". Oh, and then there would be "you should quit - anybody else could do it better than you".
Yeah, that kind of stuff. These are the kinds of things my demons say to me, and I'm sure the message is pretty similar for all of us.
But Nephi is a stronger, better man than I. Instead of wallowing in his own perceived failures, he focuses on the condition of his people. In Chapter 7 of Helaman, he starts out by doing a little bit of wallowing - he goes about wishing he'd been born in a different time and place. Thing are really bad at this time in his time and place, so one can't blame him too much.
Side note: things don't seem so great to me and us right now either. Riots everywhere, cities being taken over, fire and destruction, and the Covid thing isn't awesome either. Everyone's angry, and it feels like we're an inch away from civil war. That said, I survived the late 1960's. I remember then that there was a war, that the teenagers were rioting then too, and that the oldsters (anyone over 30) was more than concerned about the future of the country.
So why wouldn't Nephi regret the time that he lived in? He was the Lord's prophet, but to no one. The answer to that? Nephi was living in the greatest time in history! He was about to witness the coming of the Lord to his time and people. Now the other side of the coin - who wouldn't wish for that? To be there and witness the visit of the Creator? Who wouldn't give up their lives for a chance to live that one day?
Nephi knew that his people had chosen death - spiritual death. It's an irony that when we distance ourselves from the Lord, we blame him. We feel like he distanced himself from us. Instead, he has allowed us to separate ourselves from Him exactly as much as we choose.
Nephi's words tell me that when we separate ourselves from him, we're choosing death.Some would say that it's only a spiritual death, but it would be better for us to die physically. Still the words remain: "why will ye die?"
Or - we can live. Here's what living looks like to me: start writing this blog more. Sometimes it feels like doing something that doesn't make me money is a waste of time - I gotta do things that forward my goals. For me, if the hours are between 9 and 5, then if I'm not using the time to make money, I'm cheating myself - or that's the mantra. But doesn't an hour of focusing my thoughts on the Lord sharpen my saw and focus my other efforts?
So I'll try to write more. I'll ignore the accusations that I'm doing this for whatever other reasons, and do it because I know it's good for me. I'll spend more of my time lifting myself and others, instead of coming up with the snarkiest comment that I can conjure so that my viewpoint "wins".
I'll spend more time with those who lift and enlighten me, but find a way to fill my soul with enough light to spread that light. I have reason to believe that giving light away fills my light bucket even more.
And if others don't accept that light? Then we're not different than Nephi. We can still offer our light. Whether others choose to receive that light is their choice - and their decisions don't make us a success or a failure. They just make us one of the Lord's lighthouses.
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