Nephi's Perspective

The very first verse of the Book of Mormon has a lot to teach us about perspective.  Nephi told us two somewhat conflicting details about his life: on the one hand he said that he had “seen many afflictions in the course of [his] days,” and yet on the other hand he said had had “been highly favored of the Lord in all my days.”  To say that he has seen many afflictions was an understatement: he spent nearly a decade in the wilderness traveling in the harshest of conditions; his brothers attempted to kill him again and again—he was at one point tied to a tree and left to die and at another point tied to the boat and very nearly killed; and he was ultimately forced to wage war against his own brethren after spending most of his life trying to get them to live the gospel.  And these are only of course the very brief details he left us in his record—no doubt he passed through many other very grievous trials.  And yet despite all of this, he could tell us that he was highly favored of the Lord all his days.  How did he maintain that kind of perspective?

                It seems that Nephi was able to value His communication and relationship with God above the physical hardships of his mortal life.  The evidence he gives that he was indeed favored of the Lord was that he had a “great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God,” and he treasured that spiritual knowledge above the things of the world.  When Laman and Lemuel passed through trials they complained and became angry; Nephi on the other hand described his attitude amidst affliction this way: “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:16).  It was his relationship with God and ability to communicate with Him that allowed him to put earthly trials in perspective and focus on the spiritual.  This attitude reminds of the phrase I read in Chaim Potok’s book I Am The Clay long ago: “Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way; thou art the Potter, I am the clay.”  If we can actually have this kind of perspective in the great difficulties that come upon us, I think it changes everything—instead of turning angry and becoming frustrated at what happens to us, we turn to the Lord in humility seeking to be molded by Him.  That’s what Nephi did: “I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father” (1 Nephi 2:16).  His willingness to turn to the Lord for the softening of his heart made all the difference, and he could look back on the terrible trials of his life and brush them off because He had come to know the Lord.