Come, Follow Me January 15-21: 1 Nephi 6-10
In 2024, the Maxwell Institute will offer a weekly series of short essays on the Book of Mormon, in support of the Church-wide Come, Follow Me study curriculum. Each week, the Maxwell Institute blog will feature a post by a member of the Institute faculty exploring an aspect of the week’s reading block. We hope these explorations will enrich your study and teaching of the Book of Mormon throughout the coming year.
Family and Faith in the Wilderness
by Kristian S. Heal
The urgency and difficulty of creating the conditions under which faith can take root in one’s children is a major theme in these chapters of 1 Nephi, and it’s a theme that resonates powerfully today. Faithful parents, who have partaken of the fruit of the gospel and whose souls have been filled with exceeding great joy, are naturally desirous that their family should partake of it also (1 Nephi 8:12). Holy habits and righteous routines are established. Parents rejoice at the sweetness of Primary children singing so confidently of their divine parentage and their membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, this fledgling faith may start to fade in adolescence as children start to look at the world around them to discover their place in it. Every parent hopes that their children will remain submissive (Mosiah 3:19) and will always come when they are invited to partake of the sweet fruit of the gospel. But children often choose other paths, and faithful parents are left to fear exceedingly because of them (1 Nephi 8:4). This fear can be all-consuming because parents worry that once their children lose their way, they will wander off and be lost in the wilderness of the world (1 Nephi 8:23), or worse, be cast off from the presence of the Lord (1 Nephi 8:36) and be lost for all eternity.
It is easy to feel despair in the face of such situations, to feel like there is no hope, that all our efforts have been in vain. But in my experience, when we feel that all is lost, we discover God has been at work in our lives, preparing a way out of darkness. We can perhaps think of this darkness as the third wilderness (1 Nephi 7:6; 1 Nephi 8:4; 1 Nephi 10:8). In the first wilderness, children rebel, but are eventually brought back to the truths of their childhood (1 Nephi 7:6-21). These can be difficult experiences, but through faith and family pulling together, those inclined to reject their family's faith can be brought back before they move too far from the covenant path. This may be the only wilderness that a child struggles in. But, for many, there will be another that is more devastating for the parents. In this second wilderness, children are confronted with both the invitation to partake of the fruit of the gospel and the loud voices that mock those who do so (1 Nephi 8). The whole gospel plan seems quaint, even laughable from the elevated vantage point of the sophisticated and beautiful buildings of the world. The iron rod that the faithful see as reassuring becomes oppressive, and the community gathered beneath the tree seems parochial. Confronted with such compelling voices, many children (and their parents) will be confused until they hear the reassuring voice of a trusted family member calling them to partake of the fruit of the gospel (1 Nephi 8:14-16). Other children, however, will simply ignore the invitation and go their own way (1 Nephi 8:18).
But, mercifully and wonderfully, there is a third wilderness, and that is where God is at work in the world. I think it is not accidental that Lehi spoke of John the Baptist going forth and crying in the wilderness (1 Ne 10:8). This is precisely where he lost his children! And now a prophet has announced that the Messiah was coming to “take away the sins of the world.” (1 Nephi 10:10). Lehi starts to see his family from a celestial perspective. He learns through a vision that this Messiah is the “Savior of the world” (1 Nephi 10:4) and the “Redeemer of the world” (1 Nephi 10:5), and that “the Son of God” (1 Nephi 10:17) was coming to save and redeem those lost in the same “world” where he lost his children. Lehi realized that though he was right to worry about his children, all was not lost. God was working in a larger time frame, with higher and holier purposes. What was lost was not forgotten. There was a plan for his posterity, which he discovered in another allegory about another tree. Lehi learned through the allegory of the olive tree that his family was part of the great plan to scatter and gather Israel, a plan set in place to save the whole world (1 Nephi 10: 11-14).
We cannot avoid the wildernesses of life. And for many, these wildernesses take their toll. I have seen this in my own family. Rifts occur. Children leave the religion of their youth. Parents are left to navigate the seemingly impossible path of love and faithfulness. I have come to believe that the only way to do so is to trust that God is at work in this world, that our Redeemer and our Savior did not come simply to comfort the faithful but to search out and find those who are lost in the wilderness.