Lamanites and Idleness

When Laman and Lemuel opposed Nephi building a boat, it appears that part of the reason was that they simply didn’t want to put in the work it would require.  Nephi wrote that when he first told them he was going to build a ship, they “did complain against me, and were desirous that they might not labor.”  Later when Nephi showed forth the power of God to stop them from throwing him into the sea, he said, “And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto them that they should murmur no more against their father; neither should they withhold their labor from me, for God had commanded me that I should build a ship” (1 Nephi 17:18,49).  They had been withholding their labor from him because they simply did not want to work—I imagine they had felt they had done enough work in the arduous journey across the desert and they were ready to sit back on the beach at Bountiful in idleness for the rest of their lives. 

               This penchant for idleness from Laman and Lemuel clearly was passed along to their posterity.  After the Nephites and the Lamanites split, Nephi explained about the Lamanites, “They did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey” (2 Nephi 5:24).  Their dissension from Nephi and the commandments led them to fall into idleness.  Several other passages connected the Lamanites with a spirit of idleness.  When Nephi saw the Lamanite descendants in vision in a far distant future he described that they “dwindled in unbelief” and became “full of idleness and all manner of abominations” (1 Nephi 12:23).  Mormon later referred to a group of Lamanites who “lived in the wilderness, and dwelt in tents” and who were “the more idle part of the Lamanites” (Alma 22:28).  This suggests that in general the Lamanites were an idle people and this particular group was even more so.  Mormon highlighted the fact, though, that once some of the Lamanites were converted to the gospel, they stopped being idle.  He described how their testimony led them to “rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands” (Alma 24:18).  A testimony of the gospel leads us to want to act and even labor with our own hands—unbelief like Laman and Lemuel had will on the other hand lead to idleness and a desire to not labor.

               Though we often have a hard time believing it, happiness comes not from idleness and relaxation but from true labor temporally and spiritually.  In the same chapter that Nephi described how the Lamanites “became an idle people” he also wrote how his people to the contrary “lived after the manner of happiness.”  And a key part of that happiness was this statement from Nephi: “And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cause my people to be industrious, and to labor with their hands” (2 Nephi 5:17,27).  Labor and industry, not idleness, are what bring us real satisfaction and lasting happiness.