Do you find yourself fighting against God? Do you act the first time when you get a prompting or does it take some effort to get you to act? I for one know there have been times in my life I have fought against God. I didn't fully realized I was doing that until I was in my 2nd Pathway group meeting (This is a 1 year program through BYU-Idaho to get you back into continuing your education.) Thursday night this week.
We were in our Book of Mormon class and discussing when Nephi slays Laban ( 1 Nephi 4:10-18). Nephi is constrained or compelled to kill Laban by the spirit and in his heart he says, "Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him."(v.10) So, the spirit comes again and says, "The Lord hath delivered him into thy hands."(v.11) Nephi recognizes it and knows Laban has tried to kill him before. Then, the spirit comes back again and says, "Slay him for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands."(v.12) Then the spirit gives him the reason why he keeps getting told to kill Laban. "The Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief."(v.13) So, after this back and forth and some remembering for Nephi he obeys the voice of the Spirit.
Why did it take him the back and forth between the spirit before he finally decides to obey? I don't know for sure but what I do know is that there is an important lesson I learned from having this discussion in class. I learned that there are times in my life when I have been faced with a big dilemma and here comes the voice of the spirit telling me to do something. I don't want to do it so I say nothing or do nothing. Ultimately I'm saying, "No Lord I know better and I'm not doing that." I didn't even recognize I how much I have fought against God when I receive a prompting to do something until Tara made comment of how Nephi fought the Lord, but in the end he said Lord you know best, so I will obey. He submitted his will to the will of the Lord's.
I experienced this with marrying my husband. We had begun dating and almost from the beginning I had the prompting to tell him that I loved him. I said, "No Lord. I'm not going to be the phsyco girlfriend that is attached way to easily." I felt that prompting every day and didn't do anything for two weeks. Then that prompting became, "You need to tell him you love him and that you feel you are suppose to marry him." In response to that prompting I said, "Heck no. I'm not doing that. It's too soon and I'm not going to be a BYU statistic." That prompting continued for another 2 weeks. Finally, we had gone to the temple together and sitting in the celestial room Eric leaned over to me and said what are you thinking about. I blatantly said, "I'm fighting with God." I had been everyday for a month because I thought I knew what was best and that quite honestly Heavenly Father was crazy. When we left the temple that day I finally got to the point where I said, "Okay Heavenly Father I'll say it but I'm not going to be surprised when he runs for the hills." I told him later that day the promptings I had received and he said, "Okay, I love you too and feel the same way." I had finally submitted my will to the will of the Lord and it had turned out way better than I thought it was going to. We were engaged 5 weeks later and married 6 weeks after that.
The lesson I learned and I think we all call learn is that the Lord sees the beginning from end. He knows all and when we are prompted to do something we should act. I was extremely humbled when everything turned out well with my husband during all those promptings. For the last couple days now I have been feeling like how could I have been so prideful to tell the Lord what is best for me in all those times I have fought against Him. It's a humbling experience to realize how wrong you are and also to obey and see the blessings come from following the promptings of the spirit.
I hope we each can take a few moments to think of what is going on in our lives right now. Are we receiving promptings that we are fighting against because we feel we know better? Are we scared to act upon the prompting because of the unknown? Is the prompting something we said we would never do, so we really never want to do it? (This has happened to me and was a $40,000 lesson. Very big humbling experience when I finally acted upon the prompting.) Write down those promptings and take your concerns to the Lord. He will help you. These promptings come to make you a better person and so He can help us grow in ways that He knows we need. I'm sure Nephi needed that experience of killing Laban just as much as we each need the experience of doing those things that sometimes take us out of our comfort zone to test, try and stretch us. This has been a great experience for me and I hope it can be for you too!
