Led By the Power of His Arm

When Mosiah led the few righteous Nephites out of the land of Nephi, they ventured into a wilderness that apparently was pretty formidable.  They traveled down through the wilderness until they were led to the previously undiscovered (by the Nephites) land of Zarahemla.  We read, “And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla” (Omni 1:13).  They were led not by their own wisdom or knowledge but by the arm of the Lord until that led them to the place and people God had prepared for them.  The significance of that guidance is seen in the subsequent stories as others tried with great difficulty to cross that same wilderness. 

               Three other journeys across that same wilderness showed the just how hard it was without that same help from the Lord.  Zeniff, over-zealous to go back to the land of Nephi, left Zarahemla with many others and traveled back across the wilderness.  He recounted, “[We] started again on our journey into the wilderness to go up to the land; but we were smitten with famine and sore afflictions; for we were slow to remember the Lord our God.”  They did not go in a straight course to their destination but had “many days’ wandering in the wilderness” (Mosiah 9:3).  They were not led by the hand of the Lord and it was a very difficult journey for them.  A second trip many years later across this same land was made by the people of Limhi as they sought to go back and find the city of Zarahemla.  But they similarly had a hard time finding their way: “Now king Limhi had sent, previous to the coming of Ammon, a small number of men to search for the land of Zarahemla; but they could not find it, and they were lost in the wilderness” (Mosiah 21:25).  They did somehow manage to go through the wilderness, around the city of Zarahemla, through the narrow neck of land, and into the land northward where they found the land of the Jaredites.  But they had not found the land of Zarahemla that they were looking for.  A third group made the journey across the wilderness soon thereafter when Ammon took fifteen others with him to go and find the descendants of the people of Limhi at the request of Mosiah.  Though they were journeying in a noble effort to find their brethren, for some reason the Lord did not make the trip easy for them. We read that “they knew not the course they should travel in the wilderness to go up to the land of Lehi-Nephi; therefore they wandered many days in the wilderness, even forty days did they wander” (Mosiah 7:4).  It was rough and long-going for them.

             Clearly it was a very difficult and confusing trip across the wilderness between Nephi and Zarahemla that was best traveled with the help of the Lord.  We don’t know what the difficulties in the terrain were, but it was a challenging trip to all who took it.  Perhaps we can see these voyages as symbolic of our own mortal journey—it is best traveled when done so with the arm of the Lord to guide us.  We cannot see the end from the beginning or know exactly how to go through the wilderness of life, but we can seek to be led by the arm of the Lord, to be “admonished continually by the word of God.”  That is our only sure way to successfully find our path through life—to seek the Lord’s guidance and follow His word at each step of the way.