Ether 1

(December 17, 2013)
I suppose that it never dawned on me that the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel was not an instantaneous thing.  I sort of imagined to myself that one minute everything was going according to plan and the next minute your request “hand me that hammer” is returned with “Ajnsd rwscnow euhd skovnr!?!?”  And in that moment, the people scattered.

But that doesn’t appear to be what happened.  After all, Jared was seeing the confounding happening in front of him.  It was happening slowly enough that he had time to go to his brother and to ask him to pray to the Lord for their protection.  How odd and terrifying that must have been – to go from a functioning society to a dysfunctional one in a moment would be bad, but seeing it happen in slow motion must have been worse.  The question I have is not why Jared and his brother cried to the Lord, but why everyone else did not.

The other thought I had as I read was about Jared’s faith.  Sometimes I think we get so focused on the righteousness of the brother of Jared that we lose sight of the fact that Jared was a pretty faithful guy in his own right.  He foresaw that they would likely be scattered, and he sought the Lord’s help in being scattered to a choice land – exercising his faith in that regard.

At times, I think each of us feel as though we are being scattered (I certainly feel that way right now).  If nothing else, we have a comfort zone we like to live in (just as Jared certainly had home and land and comforts he did not want to leave).  But, when the time comes that we are to be driven out of our comfort zone, shouldn’t we share Jared’s faith to pray to the Lord that we will be led to a choice landing spot?  Easier said than done, I know, but I think it gives me food for thought.