Never Having Made it Known

When Lamoni awoke after having been in a kind of spiritual sleep for about three days, he praised the Lord to his queen and then fell back down again. This led her and Ammon and all the servants except one to also reach out to the Lord and to eventually fall down to the ground in a similar spiritual trance. That one who remained standing was Abish, and she had “been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father” (Alma 19:16). She had been secretly converted previously because of this vision, though we know no other details about it. I heard once someone suggest that there are three possible ways to interpret this sentence: (1) her father had a remarkable vision and shared it with her, (2) she had a remarkable vision of her heavenly Father, or (3) she had a remarkable vision of her earthly father who had passed away. To me the most likely interpretation is the last one. If her father had had the vision and told her about it, then it would be odd in my opinion for Mormon to then say in the next verse “having been converted to the Lord, and never having made it known” since at least her father would have known of her conversion. If she had a vision of her heavenly Father, I think it is much more likely that Mormon would have said “the Lord” or some other name for Deity or a reference to heaven. I know of no where else in the Book of Mormon where God is referred to as “father” without an additional description to ensure we understand that this is who is being referred to. For example, King Benjamin spoke of “your heavenly Father,” Mormon referred to “God the Father,” and the Savior spoke of “your Father who is in heaven” (Mosiah 2:34, Moroni 7:2, 3 Nephi 12:45). But to my knowledge He is never referred to as simply “father,” so I don’t think Abish’s vision was of God. To me the most likely thing that happened is that her earthly father, having passed away, was converted on the other side of the veil and came to her in a vision to explain the things of God. She may have learned then that the God of the Nephites was the true God, and perhaps her father in the vision told her not to share it with anyone until missionaries came from the Nephites to teach them. The Lord clearly had prepared her spiritually to know just what to do in this moment to help spread the gospel message to all the people of Lamoni. Like Esther, she was prepared “for such a time as this” to bless her people (Esther 4:14).  

               Wherever that vision came from, perhaps part of the reason that Abish had such spiritual power and proved so influential in this most pivotal moment was that she had not told others what had been revealed to her in this remarkable vision. Other scriptural passages suggest that sometimes great spiritual manifestations given to people are meant to be kept personal and not shared with others. For example, the brother of Jared was commanded in these words, “ye shall treasure up the things which ye have seen and heard, and show it to no man” (Ether 3:21). Moroni added, “the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen; and they were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after that he should be lifted up upon the cross” (Ether 4:1). The Lord did not want this great spiritual vision to be shared freely with the world—it was too sacred for that. One of the cross references to this story is this New Testament verse about Mary after the birth of Jesus and the miraculous manifestations given to the shepherds and shared with her and Joseph: “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Surely she learned great spiritual truths as her divine Son was born and was growing up that she shared with no one but kept in her heart, just like Abish had done. Later as Jesus was performing miracles, He would often give the counsel to those who received His miraculous healing to not tell anyone about it. For example, after cleansing a leper He said, “See thou tell no man” (Matthew 8:4). Sometimes a spiritual manifestation or healing or great revelation is for the person only and not to be shared openly. This matches the Savior’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matthew 7:6). Physical pearls come hidden in oysters so that none can see them except those who are allowed to open them up, and the Lord wants us to keep hidden that which is sacred like pearls tucked away in their shells.

               This reminds me of what Truman G. Madsen once related about the Prophet Joseph Smith. He told how the Prophet Joseph felt sometimes a sense of loneliness from what he knew and said this: “In that loneliness, [Joseph] had to keep to his own bosom (those were his words) certain deep understandings the Lord had vouchsafed to him with the command that he not share them. ‘The reason,’ he once said, ‘we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us is because we do not keep them but reveal them . . . even to our enemies.’ Then he added, ‘I can keep a secret till Doomsday.’ And so he did.” Perhaps then the lesson to us from the story of Abish is that we need to learn to keep spiritual secrets—the Lord needs to be able to trust us with revelations that when so directed we will not share with others but keep them in our hearts in preparation for future events. Then He can trust us with more because He knows we will not throw His pearls before the world.