They Did Not Cease to Praise the Lord

The recent song Singing in the Dark by the Christian artist Tasha Layton includes these lyrics: 

So I will turn my face to Heaven

Even through the driving rain

I'll keep finding hallelujahs

Use my praise to fight the pain

I'll keep reaching for Your hand

When I can't see where You are

While I'm waiting for the light to brеak

I'll keep singing in the dark 

Her song suggests that to confront pain and trials in life, the figurative rain and the dark, we should praise the Lord. This is an idea that Nephi would certainly agree with. This was how he made it through the four days being tied up on the boat by his brothers during a storm. He recorded, “And it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness…. there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me.” He wrote how he mentally survived those terrible days: “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:11, 13, 16). He praised the Lord all the day long even as he was in intense physical pain and their ship was on the verge of being totally lost at sea. As the song suggests, he used “praise to fight the pain.” He literally turned his “face to Heaven even through the driving rain.”

The lowest point in Nephi’s life, at least as recorded in his writings, came later when his father died and his brothers were still “angry with [him] because of the admonitions of the Lord.” They still sought his life after all those years and all that he had done for them to preserve their lives. He poured out his heart in what we call Nephi’s psalm, sorrowing because of his own weakness and pain: “Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me. And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins.” Once again, in his pain he found he still had the voice to praise the Lord, and that got him through it: “I know in whom I have trusted. My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep…. Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation…. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God” (2 Nephi 4:13, 17-19, 30, 35). Despite the anguish for his own sins and his brothers’ actions and his father’s death, Nephi found strength and comfort as he praised the Lord. That’s what pulled him out of his despair.

            There is one more example in the Book of Mormon of how praising the Lord helped get people through difficult times. The Jaredites ventured on barges across the ocean on their journey to the promised land. They spent nearly a year in these cramped quarters (animals included) where they were “tossed upon the waves before the wind” and there “were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind.” They faced terrible storms and surely struggled just to have enough to eat and drink, living in tight dirty quarters day after day after day in the seemingly endless ocean. So how did they deal with this? Moroni tells us: “And they did sing praises unto the Lord; yea, the brother of Jared did sing praises unto the Lord, and he did thank and praise the Lord all the day long; and when the night came, they did not cease to praise the Lord.” They praised the Lord all day long and into the night! As the lyrics of the song mentioned above says, they kept “singing in the dark”! I have a hard time believing that I would find it in me to praise the Lord in those circumstances, but they did and surely that got them through those 344 days on the water. They used “praise to fight the pain” and when they finally reached the promised land, “They bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them” (Ether 6:4, 6, 9, 12). Their example, along with Nephi’s, reminds us that turning to the Lord in praise will help us not just in the good times but in our greatest trials as well. We can strive to find hallelujahs in the driving rain just as Nephi tied up on the ship in the storm, and while we wait for the light to break, with the Jaredites we can keep singing in the dark.