1 Nephi 21

(July 20, 2014)

                Sometimes I think we allow ourselves to be confused by the commandments of the Lord.  Very rarely, in my experience, does the Lord command us to do things that are beyond our control.  He instructs us to obey the commandments, He gives us our stewardships and we are to magnify and fulfill them.  But most of the time there is not a result prescribed by the Lord.  We are to do what He has asked and to leave the results to Him.

                So, for example, if we are called as Home Teachers, we are given the commandment to give our best efforts to meet with our families, teach them, inspire them to pray as a family, and so forth.  If, in the end, they choose not to come to Church then that is something I do not believe will ultimately be something that we are judged on.

                Rarely, however, we are given results-based commandments from the Lord.  These commands are the ones where Nephi’s bold words in 1 Nephi 3:7 are applicable – if there is a particular result that we have been commanded to achieve, then the Lord will provide a way for us to achieve that result.

                I bring this up because this is the understanding that resolves the apparent conflict between Nephi’s words and Isaiah in this chapter speaking of how ‘though Israel be not gathered,’ yet Isaiah would be blessed.  I think that Isaiah’s formulation is more common by far, but because we lose sight of what we have actually been commanded to do (because we think we are commanded to achieve results rather than take actions or magnify callings while respecting agency), we think we are going to be provided a way to accomplish things the Lord never asked of us.