Lehi's Joy and Sorrow

Lehi told Jacob that “there is an opposition in all things” and he linked happiness and misery together saying, “If there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery.”  He went on to say that if Adam and Eve would have stayed in the garden they would have had “no joy, for they knew no misery” (2 Nephi 2:11, 13, 23).  The principle seems to be that in life we must have  misery to some degree in order to really know joy, or as the Lord said in our dispensation, if we “never should have bitter [we] could not know the sweet” (D&C 29:39).  If anyone really understood this principle surely it was Lehi, for in his life he experienced both the greatest joys and the deepest sorrows. 

                  Several experiences recorded of Lehi’s life shows the joy that he felt because of his righteousness and that of his family’s.  After his vision where he saw the Savior, we read that “his soul did rejoice, and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had seen” (1 Nephi 1:15).  When Nephi and his brethren made it back with the plates of brass after their dangerous journey, “Lehi was filled with joy,…  behold their joy was full, and [Sariah] was comforted…. And it came to pass that they did rejoice exceedingly” (1 Nephi  5:1, 8).  In his description of the vision of the tree of life Lehi said, “I have reason to rejoice in the Lord because of Nephi and also of Sam.”  He described eating the fruit saying, “it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy” (1 Nephi 8:3-12).  Later on their difficult journey when Nephi was able to obtain food after breaking his bow, Lehi and the family were filled with “great” joy (1 Nephi 16:32).  And as he spake his final words to his sons, he pleaded with them to choose righteousness so that his “soul might have joy” (2 Nephi 1:21).  Lehi clearly sought for and did have great joy in the experiences of his life.

                But his life was also filled with sorrow and misery.   After he had complained against the Lord, “he was truly chastened because of his murmuring against the Lord, insomuch that he was brought down into the depths of sorrow” (1 Nephi 16:25).  On the boat crossing the ocean when Laman and Lemuel had taken over the ship we read, “Because of their grief and much sorrow, and the iniquity of my brethren, they were brought near even to be carried out of this time to meet their God…  they were near to be cast with sorrow into a watery grave” (1 Nephi 18:18).  When Lehi spoke to Laman and Lemuel he told them, “My heart hath been weighed down with sorrow from time to time” (2 Nephi 1:17).  To Joseph he said, “In the days of my greatest sorrow did thy mother bear thee” (2 Nephi 3:1).  Lehi clearly experienced intense sorrow during his life, largely because of the actions of Laman and Lemuel. 

                To me Lehi’s life shows that we will experience great sorrow in addition to great joy in this life.  In his teaching to Jacob he highlighted that without children there would be “no joy” and “no misery” (2 Nephi 2:23).  His life was a living example of the fact that to know joy in our mortal probation we must also experience great sorrow.