I Must Obey

Yesterday as I read a chapter of the novel Prince Caspian to my son, the fourth book in the Chronicles of Narnia, I was touched by a scene with a dwarf named Trumpkin. King Caspian and his army were in dire circumstances trying to fight King Miraz and his much more numerous forces, and the decision was made to blow the horn, an ancient artifact that was supposed to summon magical help. When Caspian inquired of his close friend Trumpkin what he thought of doing this, he said, “Your Majesty knows I think the Horn—and that bit of broken stone over there—and your great King Peter—and your Lion Aslan—are all eggs in moonshine. It’s all one to me when your Majesty blows the Horn. All I insist on is that the army is told nothing about it. There’s no good raising hopes of magical help which (as I think) are sure to be disappointed.” Nonetheless, King Caspian chose to blow the horn, and it was decided that they needed two messengers to go to two of the locations that they thought the help would show up if it came. They struggled to find someone who would accept the responsibility and after another dwarf refused, Trumpkin said, “Thimbles and thunderstorms! Is that how you speak to the King? Send me, Sire, I’ll go.” Caspian was naturally very surprised by this and questioned, “But I thought you didn’t believe in the Horn, Trumpkin.” The dwarf then gave this powerful reply: “No more I do, your Majesty. But what’s that got to do with it?... You are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and taking orders. You’ve had my advice, and now it’s the time for orders.” His obedience proved very fruitful, for the help did come and Trumpkin found them, which ultimately helped turn the tide of the war. His attitude is indeed one that we should have as disciples of Jesus Christ—we follow Him, He is our King, and even if we don’t always understand or agree with the Lord’s commandments, it is our duty to obey. With Nephi we can likewise say to every invitation the Savior gives us: “Thus hath the Lord commanded me, and I must obey” (2 Nephi 33:15).

                In a devotional this week Elder Bednar highlighted the well-known scripture about God’s purpose and mission: “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). God’s work is us and our eternal progression, and that’s why we should want to follow Him above all else. He and His Beloved Son have prepared the way for our salvation, something we cannot obtain on our own. Elder Bednar then highlighted what our work is as defined in another scripture: “Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea, with all your might, mind and strength” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:20). Knowing His perfect love for us, our responsibility is to love God and show that by keeping His commandments with the same faithfulness that this fictional dwarf obeyed his king. To willingly keep the Lord’s commandments is to soften our hearts before Him; and to refuse is to harden our hearts. The angel said this to Nephi during his great vision: “For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of men; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other—either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds unto their being brought down into captivity, and also into destruction” (1 Nephi 14:7). Ultimately, we only have two choices: we can choose to humble ourselves and keep His commandments, repenting each time we fall short; or we can harden our hearts and in the end refuse to submit ourselves to Him. Only the first course of action will lead to the “peace and life eternal” that we seek, but it takes a great deal of faith and humility to go against even our own wisdom and that of the world and “choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men” (2 Nephi 2:27).