the Lord's Plan

I read 1 Nephi 18 today, the voyage of Nephi and his family to the promised land. I was struck by 2 things. The first in verse 21 where once Nephi is released and he prays, the storm stops and they are once again on calm waters.

This strikes me as amazing. I do not believe that the Lord ever just banishes weather if you will. The Lord is bound to certain laws just like all of us are. I believe that He created a storm large enough and powerful enough to threaten the ship but not capsize it or cause them to drown but also only made it to last the appropriate amount of time. The Lord knew exactly how long it would take Laman and his cohorts to repent and had the storm last accordingly. I once had a mission companion ask me if I thought that we could frustrate the plans of God. I told him that I didn't think we could. I think the Lord knows us too well, I don't think we can surprise him. After re-reading 1 Nephi 18, I am again feeling that we cannot do anything that the Lord hasn't already planned for. Another example of this would be the star that appears when the Savior is born. Think of how many years in advance that star had to be placed in the heavens prior to His birth so that it appeared the very night, maybe even the very moment His son was born in the flesh. It kind of boggles the mind. It gives me hope that when I screw up and need to repent that of course there are consequences, but hopefully nothing that can't be fixed.

The 2nd verse that stood out to me is verse 24 which says they put all of their seeds into the ground. This was first brought to my attention when I was in the MTC. One of my district leaders, Elder Holden, used this verse in our daily devotional and talked about what amount of faith would be needed to put all the seeds you brought with you into the ground that first year. It really is amazing if you think about it. They didn't know what foods they would find on this new and strange land or even if the climate was right to grow the types of foods they had brought with them. They had incredible faith to just plant everything and put their hope upon the Lord to sustain them. I often wonder if I would have had such faith were I in their shoes. Food for thought. Until tomorrow.