Partially because I am still hoping to dust this space off, and partially to hold myself accountable on my goal to have more consistent spiritual practices in 2020, I have decided to try sharing some of the insights I am gaining from my weekly scripture study here on the blog each Sunday. Here goes the first attempt...
One thing I feel like I truly do KNOW from personal experience is that God can use just about anything to communicate with His children and teach them the lessons that He wants them to learn. So this year, I am fully approaching the Book of Mormon with that belief in mind. While I certainly hope that the Book of Mormon is everything that I've been taught to believe, I also figure that worst-case scenario it’s a fictional book that I can use to learn valuable lessons as I continue to seek personal revelation. Stranger things have happened than finding valuable lessons in a fictional story about flawed characters (I’m looking at you, Aesop).
Anyways, moving on to what I actually wanted to share from what stood out to me in my study of the Book of Mormon this past week (1 Nephi 1-7):
Long story short, I picked up on a lot of details that I never really paid attention to before and what kept coming up for me was the simple imperfections in Lehi's family. Lehi was a bit tunnel-visioned. Nephi was indeed "exceedingly young" (1 Nephi 2:16) and it shows in his conceitedness and lack of compassion and empathy towards his brothers. Laman and Lemuel have definite anger issues, but also I've never found them so relatable in my past reading of these chapters. Like, if I’m just being completely honest... if my younger brother walked around saying things like “I Nephi being ripped and hot…” (paraphrasing) then I might feel like knocking a little humility and reality into him too. And moving on... Sariah taught me that even prophets’ wives say things they don’t mean when they are feeling uncertain and emotional. All in all, I just recognized (maybe for the first time ever) that Lehi and his family were just massively flawed and imperfect… And maybe that’s the point!
There were plenty of other righteous prophets in Jerusalem at the time who didn’t receive the revelation to flee with their family into the wilderness. Why Lehi? Maybe God chose them to be the family that could lead through their example of pursuing righteousness, growing through challenges, and practicing faith in action amidst all of their own weaknesses and imperfections?
God didn’t need them to be perfect, and He doesn’t expect perfection from us either. Maybe the moral of the story here is that perseverance beats out perfection. Say what you will about any of Lehi’s family, but they were all immensely powerful examples of perseverance.
It can be easy to villanize Laman and Lemuel and overlook the stumblings of the other characters in this story, but I feel like there is so much more to the story when we recognize the opportunities for growth in all of these characters. When it comes right down to it, my own spiritual journey looks a lot more like Laman’s than Nephi’s.
I’m guilty of the doubting and following along begrudgingly. Maybe even more so, I often fail to see the miracles right in front of me for what they are. Thankfully, I feel confident that God doesn’t expect perfection from me in the middle of my journey. Experience also tells me that He won’t give up on me or stop sending those miracles even when I seem entirely undeserving and beyond reach.
But I guess that's just the Book of Mormon according to Naomi. Take it for whatever it's worth.