Spiritual Insights...and other stuff

Lately, I've been reading the Book of Mormon backwards. Moroni 10:33 to 1 Nephi 1:1. I don't know what brought me to do it, perhaps I needed to add little seasoning to my study. (I decided to read the individual verses the normal way, fyi. Reading every word backwards seemed ill-advised.) In today's reading, a few verses in Helaman 7 caught my attention. Nephi is on his tower calling Zarahemla to repentance. He bemoans their wicked state and asks, "Why has [God] forsaken you?" He subsequently answers this question himself: It is because ye have hardened your hearts; yea, ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd; yea, ye have provoked him to anger against you.¹ Nephi declares that the "good shepherd" is angry at the people of Zarahemla, who, by metaphorical implication, are His "sheep." Who is the good shepherd? Jesus Himself said, "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep ."² Diving into the metaphor, we find these...

While reading in 1 Nephi 9 with my wife - I mean, my lovely wife -, I came upon those two tender verses at the end (v. 5-6) where Nephi explains that the Lord has commanded him to make these plates "for a wise purpose...which purpose I [Nephi] know not." Now, think about it. Here we are reading the account of Nephi and he tells us that he didn't even know why he was writing it. He's writing The Book of Mormon , for crying out loud - this is the most correct of any book on earth, it contains the fullness of the gospel, the knowledge contained within is essential for our eternal exaltation. And here we have good 'ole Nephi engraving in his spiritual record for God knows why. Now, given the rest of Nephi's writings, I'm guessing he wasn't 100% ignorant of what would become of his record. However, in these verses he shows his willingness to do whatever the Lord commands him to do, whether or not he knows why. Nephi has total trust in the Lord; he might ...