Me Thinks

I really like these words from Maurine Proctor. I have read them repeatedly.

I asked my class, "What was Laman and Lemuel's most basic problem?"

We know that Nephi, Laman and Lemuel literally took a journey through the wilderness, and eight-year-marathon that took them from Jerusalem to the shores of the Arabian Sea--and then beyond. This journey, however, was also a metaphor of everyone's life experience.  It applies to all of us.

Here in mortality, we are cast into the wilderness, taking a wilderness journey, where, like Nephi's family, we experience the tremendous heat of trail, the tedium of the way, the wandering through a sometimes trackless desert, the hardship, the thirst.

Nephi's journey, which is a type of our journey in life, was joyously transformed because he did know the dealings of that God who had created him. 

He did not face anything alone or without purpose.  God walked by his side, led him to the more fertile parts of the wilderness.  He knew who stood by him. 

Their (Laman and Lemuel) "knew not the dealings of that God who had created them" and therefore their wilderness journey was going to be merely a miserable, futile experience. They became ripe for discouragement, despair, and anguish.

Surely, as sons of Lehi, Laman and Lemuel had been taught about God, just as Nephi had--but, nonetheless, and obviously, they did not know Him. They had not learned what they had been taught, because to come to know the dealings of that God who has created us, it is not enough to have someone else tell you about him.  You learn about who he is, in those hours in your room on your knees.  He reveals himself to you when you seek him with all your heart and when your whole mind and soul is inclined toward him.

Laman and Lemuel did not want to pay that price, and so they paid other, agonizing prices instead, throughout the entire journey.  They suffered, not because the Lord imposed suffering upon them, but given the nature of the journey, it was the natural consequence of attempting to go it alone. Because at their core, they knew not God, at their core they could only respond to the reality of the journey with the outlook of the natural man.

Meridian Magazine, January 4, 2011, "It Wasn't Because Laman and Lemuel Had a Bad Attitude."