There's Help!

When the Lord explains to the Brother of Jared that he needs to build barges and cross the waters to reach the Promised Land he also tells him that "ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea" (Ether 2:25). When we look at Jared and his brother's journey through the wilderness as a metaphor of our own journey through the wilderness of telestial life, we realize that we, likewise, cannot make the journey unless the Lord prepares us to withstand the adversity we will encounter.

Taking the metaphor one step further, we realize that we can't Live in Truth without the Lord's help. He will guide us to recognize Truth, to identify and stick to the verity (the Truth) of any situation, and to understand how to deal with the Truth. We can't do it alone and if we are trying to do it alone, we will fail.

God wants us to succeed. He wants us to make the journey through life and reach our Promised Land, the celestial kingdom. And, most importantly, He will help us daily to Live in Truth if we turn to Him.

Journey of Faith

You can find the movie here

Last night I showed my students the documentary, Journey of Faith. I watch it every semester with my students so I’ve seen it over twenty times and I still am amazed by it. We all know the deprivations and adversity the modern pioneers encountered as they traveled from Nauvoo to what is now Utah. But we aren’t as familiar with what Lehi and Sariah and their family endured as they traveled eight years in the wilderness until they finally reached the land of Bountiful. Even then the journey wasn’t over. Nephi was told to build a ship and then sail it across an ocean. What a test of faith. I'm not sure I'd get in a boat built by anyone I know much less sail across the ocean in it.

Watching the movie makes me appreciate the Book of Mormon so much more. Seeing the places the Arabian Desert they traveled through boggles my mind. How could anyone survive? That would tax even modern survivalist adventurers, and yet they were bearing children and caring for young families in that environment.

The most amazing part of the movie is seeing how the Lord directed them to the one very small fertile place where they could stop to build a ship in order to continue on their way to the Promised Land. It makes me think about the desert periods in my life and the oases the Lord has provided for me along my way. It seems that just when I know I can’t take any more desert, an oasis appears.

If you haven’t seen the movie, you need to. It will make you think and appreciate the Book of Mormon more, and help you see the workings of the Lord in your own life.

Driven to the Promised Land

Throughout scripture there are stories of people seeking a land promised them by God. Abraham, Moses, Jared and his brother, and Lehi and Nephi are some of those people. Each of these stories has powerful symbolism that teaches us about finding our way to our promised land—the celestial kingdom of God. In one of those stories, the story of Nephi, God instructs Nephi to build a ship to take him across the waters to his promised land. Nephi has seen ships, but the Lord instructs him to build something different. As he obeys the Lord, he tells us that “we did work timbers of curios workmanship” (1 Nephi 17:1) and that from time to time the Lord instructed him what to do next to build his ship. Finally Nephi says, “I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men” (1 Nephi 17:2).

There is beautiful symbolism going on here. The ship or vessel is what carries Nephi and his family to the Promised Land, and our physical bodies are what carry us to our Promised Land. So from Nephi’s story we learn that we are to develop ourselves by going to the Lord for instruction as to what we need to do rather than to follow the ways of the world and develop ourselves “after the manner of men.”

To build his ship Nephi went to the mount often and prayed often, therefore the “Lord showed unto me great things” (1 Nephi 17:3). Likewise if we go to the temple often and pray often we can receive revelation as to what we should do to obtain our Promised Land. There are many more symbolic elements to this story, but one of the most fascinating to me is that Nephi tells us that “we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land” (1 Nephi 17:8).

While winds can “drive” a ship in the right direction while at sea, winds and storms can also be a symbol for adversity. We know that not all the winds Nephi encountered were gentle. There were many violent storms. But we learn that even the winds (read adversity) of our life can “drive” us closer to the Promised Land if we stay close to the Lord and trust in Him.


Picture by Jim Warren: http://www.jimwarren.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=62

Our Promised Land Journey

When the Lord commands the Brother of Jared (Ether 2-3) to build ships to take his people to the Promised Land, he obeys. But as the ships are completed the Brother of Jared realizes that there are some problems. The first problem is that the ships are air tight and the people inside will suffocate. The other problem is that the ships are dark inside. The people sailing in the ships would not even be able to see to steer the ships! So the Brother of Jared prayed to know how to solve these two problems.

In answer to his prayer the Lord told the Brother of Jared to cut a hole in the top and in the bottom of the ship so that they could be opened when needed for air. The Brother of Jared does as he is instructed, but then prays again saying that he has obeyed the Lord’s instructions and cut the holes, but there is still a problem in that they have no light.

This time instead of telling him what to do, the Lord asked the Brother of Jared what to do about the problem. So the Brother of Jared pondered on the problem and came up with a solution. He climbed a high mountain, prepared 16 stones out of molten rock, and then prayed and asked the Lord to touch the stones so that they would give off light. The Lord answered his prayer and the 16 stones are placed in the ships where they light the way.

In Hebrew the word spirit and the words wind or breath are the same word, ruach. So symbolically we find in this story a metaphor. Our bodies are the vessels and when we are born, the Lord puts into our bodies the breath of life or our spirits so that we can make this journey through life. But as we commence the journey, we are in the dark as to how to steer our way back to God. To solve that problem we need to ask the Lord to touch our souls so we will have the light necessary to steer our vessels back to the presence of God. He gives us our spirits, but we must find the light.

There is more symbolism in just this much of the story. Ponder on it and let me know what else you learn!

Steering By Kindled Light

Martha’s comment the other day reminded me of the rich symbolism in the story of the Jaredites as they make their way to the Promised Land. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, but wanted to share this quote with you from Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen’s book My Grandfather’s Blessings. In the Epilogue of the book she says:

"In the Book of Mormon, there is another version of the Exodus story. In it, the Jaredites, forced from their homes by conditions that stifle their freedom, set out across great uncharted waters to reach the land of promise in boats sealed up tightly against the sea. Jared speaks to God about the difficulty in steering these boats in total darkness. He is told that if he brings stones with him, God will touch them and they will shine forth light.

The voyage is long and difficult in the extreme; there are mighty storms, and the boats are plunged deep beneath the water over and over again. But their seal holds, and the stones, touched by God, continue to shine. According to Jung, the stone is one of the two archetypal symbols for the soul. This image of a people sailing through heavy seas in search of freedom, steering only by the light that the touch of God kindles in their souls, is a particularly beautiful one for me."[My Grandfather's Blessings, P. 375]

This symbolism is especially beautiful for me also. And there is so much more!

Our Journey to the Promised Land

There is a beautiful metaphor in the story of the Brother of Jared. Like all Promised Land stories, this story is instructive in teaching us how to return to the land our Father in Heaven has promised us, which is the Celestial Kingdom.
In Ether 2 we are told that the Brother of Jared was building a vessel to take himself, his family, and his friends to the Promised Land. We too are making out journey in a vessel. The vessel we use to make our journey is our physical body. We didn’t build that vessel with hammer and nails as the Brother of Jared did, but we built it through rest, exercise, eating properly, etc.
When building his ships, the Brother of Jared encountered two problems. He needed to get air and light into the vessels. When he went to the Lord in prayer to ask how to solve the problems, the Lord told him exactly what to do about getting air. In other words, the Lord provided the solution. But as to the problem of light, the Lord told the Brother of Jared he would have to find the solution to that one himself.
This is the instructive part. The Hebrew word for spirit, ruwach, is also used to mean wind and breath. Thus in the scriptures the spirit is also called the Breath of Life and wind or air and spirit have symbolic connections that have great meaning in this story. We, as in the story of the Jaradites, need two things to make our journey through life. We need spirit (symbolically air) and light. The Lord solved the first problem for us when he placed our spirits or Breath of Life in our earthly vessels. But as with the Brother of Jared, He has instructed us to find the light, and we must search to find a way to bring the light that will illuminate our way back to God into our lives. It is essential that we do this because we cannot navigate without it.
There are many sources purporting to be the light, but the only true source comes from the hand of the Lord. As we pray and allow Him to touch us and light our way, we can travel the path to our promised land with confidence.