The Visions Before the Journey

A famous proverb says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).  I think we see the fulfillment of this especially in the story of Nephi and Lehi and their journey in the wilderness.  Both Nephi and Lehi had received visions from the Lord that I think helped them to press forward the eight arduous journeys in the desolate wilderness.  Lehi received a vision of the Savior who gave him a book which he read and learned that “it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon” (1 Nephi 1:13).  This vision that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed—and that he likely would be destroyed with it—surely helped to motivate him forward and resist the temptation to want to turn back when food was short and they were suffering.  Nephi wrote that Lehi saw “many things” in “visions and in dreams,” and it appears that at least part of those visions was a view of the promised land where they were headed (1 Nephi 1:16).  Lehi said to his wife when she was struggling to believe in their journey, “But behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice” (1 Nephi 5:5).  This was before they had made it more than a few weeks from Jerusalem, but he had the vision of the promised land where they were headed.  Literally without that vision, he would have perished.

              Nephi also received a grand vision from the Lord at the start of their journey, and it seems to me that this must have been a great motivating factor in the difficult years across the desert when they were on the brink of death.  He had a vision of the promised land many years into the future: “And I looked and beheld the land of promise; and I beheld multitudes of people, yea, even as it were in number as many as the sand of the sea” (1 Nephi 12:1).  He saw many generations of his own posterity, their wars, their cities, and the great events surrounding the visit of the Savior among them.  He told us after his vision, “I bear record that I saw the things which my father saw” (which is another indication that Lehi also saw the promised land in vision) and became a second witness of the vision of his father (1 Nephi 14:29).  Nephi had this marvelous vision in the valley of Lemuel which was only three days into the desert—and when he saw his posterity for generations and generations he wasn’t even married yet.  It was after this that they traveled for eight years in the wilderness in extreme conditions that we can only imagine followed by an arduous journey across the ocean.  Surely for Nephi the vision enabled him press forward against all odds. 

              Both Nephi and Lehi could say as Paul did before King Agrippa, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19).  They pressed on in the desert because they had a vision of where the Lord wanted them to go and they were obedient to that heavenly vision.