Nourish It With Great Care

In his book Heart of the Matter, President Nelson said this, "I plead with you to take charge of your testimony. Work for it. Own it. Care for it. Nurture it so that it will grow. Feed it truth. Don’t pollute it with the false philosophies of unbelieving men and women and then wonder why your testimony is waning. Engage in daily, earnest, humble prayer. Nourish yourself in the words of ancient and modern prophets. Ask the Lord to teach you how to hear Him better. Spend more time in the temple and in family history work. As you make your testimony your highest priority, watch for miracles to happen in your life." This is a familiar invitation, and surely we should pay attention when the prophet "pleads" with us to do something specific. The connotation of the verbs he used suggests a diligent effort and involvement on our part when it comes to developing our testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and strengthening our relationship with God: take charge, work, care for, nurture, feed, engage, nourish, ask. These action verbs tell us that we have to choose to act if we want to know spiritual truths. We are to be like Nephi instead of Laman and Lemuel when trying to come to know the Lord. Nephi wrote that he had “great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord” (1 Nephi 2:16). Laman and Lemuel, on the other hand, when asked if they had prayed to try to understand truth simply gave this excuse: “We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us” (1 Nephi 15:9). Nephi summarized for us what we have to do if we want to know the things of God: “The Holy Ghost… is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him…. For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old” (1 Nephi 10:19). We must diligently seek. And we won’t get a million-dollar answer to a ten-cent prayer.

                This message of President Nelson’s is of course like what Alma taught the Zoramites to help them come to develop faith and understand the truth. He compared the word to a seed and suggested that we must nourish it if we want it to grow in us. In fact, a form of the word “nourish” is used eight times in six verses at the end of Alma 32. He urged them, “Nourish it with great care…. Nourish it with much care…. But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root;… [If] ye will not nourish the tree… ye cannot have the fruit thereof…. If ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life. But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root;… And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof” (v37-42). If we want the fruit, we have to nourish it, and that nourishment takes great time and effort, just like anything else of value in life. In a message about determination, Elder Holland referenced the play by William Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida, in which Troilus is impatiently in love with Cressida and wants the relationship to move forward. After complaining to Cressida’s uncle Pandarus, the latter says, “He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.” When Troilus suggests that he has indeed tarried, the play continues: 

Pandarus: Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

Troilus: Have I not tarried?

Pandarus: Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

Troilus: Still have I tarried?

Pandarus: Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet . . . the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.    

In other words, in order to obtain something of great value, one must be willing to “tarry” many things and patiently work through all that is required to obtain that item. Surely that is the case with our most important possession, namely a testimony of Jesus Christ. We must study and pray and ponder and earnestly seek, day after day, if we want to obtain the “cake” that is a knowledge of things of God. That which is of most worth to us will not come at a cheap price.