Mormon's Faith and Gratitude

I think that 3 Nephi 5:20 is a verse that has a lot to teach us.  Mormon took a brief pause from his account of the Nephites and spoke a bit about himself.  He said this, “I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi. I have reason to bless my God and my Savior Jesus Christ, that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, (and no one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out of that land) and that he hath given me and my people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls.”  Mormon was writing at a time of immense wickedness among his own people, and yet he was able to display an incredible faith and gratitude in the Lord.  Here are the phrases that stand out to me: 

·        “A pure descendant of Lehi”—I’m not sure exactly what Mormon meant by the word “pure”.  Perhaps he was speaking about his own standing before the Lord amidst so many other descendants of Lehi who were not clean.  Mormon did indeed have clean hands and a pure heart despite the depravity around him, and his example shows us that we can remain pure no matter what the world around us does.  Or perhaps he was speaking strictly of lineage, suggesting that he was a direct descendant of Lehi.  We know from Mormon 1:5 that he was also a descendant of Nephi (which we would assume anyway because he was a Nephite), and perhaps he wanted us to know that he was the kind of descendant of these two great men that they would want.  Nephi wrote near the beginning of his record, “I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men” and maybe Mormon also wanted us to know that he, as “seed” of Nephi, would indeed only write those things on the plates which were of worth to the children of men (1 Nephi 6:6).  Just two verses earlier he had told us, “I know the record which I make to be a just and a true record” (3 Nephi 5:18).

·         “I have reason to bless my God and my Savior Jesus Christ, that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem”—What an incredible thing to show gratitude for!  He was speaking about something that happened to his posterity nearly 1000 years earlier.  It’s not often that I find myself expressing gratitude for historical events that, if I would spent time thinking about them, I would realize have ultimately greatly impacted my own circumstances.  Mormon showed that he was not so stuck in his own terrible problems to be able to see the great blessings the Lord had granted his fathers in preserving their lives.  The way he was able to put his life in perspective is surely an example to follow. 

·         “No one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out of that land”—I’ve been thinking about why Mormon would include this aside.  Perhaps what we can learn from this is that sometimes the Lord grants us blessings—in this case it was the blessing of preserving their lives even though they endured great hardship in order to be saved—and those blessings are often not seen by others.  So before we are too quick to judge others’ circumstances and what might appear to be a lack of blessings from the Lord, we should remember that some blessings from God are only seen by Him and the recipient.  The Lord will often strengthen and uplift us internally without changing our external circumstances, and we should not judge the Lord for suffering we see in others because we have no idea what He is really doing in their lives.  For example, I often heard people in France tell me they couldn’t believe in God because there were people in Africa who suffered, and yet many of those people in Africa they were referring to actually believed in God and recognized blessings from Him.    

·         “He hath given me and my people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls”—Again here I think we see the great gratitude that Mormon had for the blessings of the Lord.  Despite the wars that constantly surrounded him, he gloried in the knowledge of the Lord he had received personally and as a people.  He had “tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus” and all of the wickedness of the world couldn’t change his rejoicing in that great blessing from God. 

As we continue to face an ever-increasing wickedness in the world, surely we would do well to remember the example of Mormon who, while living in the world, could not be swayed from living his life of purity and faith and gratitude before the Lord.