Today I read Ether 3 where Mahonri sees the Lord for the first time and sees all mankind and the history of the entire world. I think it was so neat that the Lord confounded the language that Mahonri wrote the vision he was given in. I can't help but wonder if He taught Mahonri the language or if Mahonri was given a temporary gift of tongues to write it. But like I've said before I like languages.
The focal point of this chapter of course is the Lord appearing unto the brother of Jared. As we discussed yesterday Mahonri supplicated the Lord and the Lord allowed him to exercise his agency by coming up with the solution to his problem on his own. Mahonri does not disappoint and brings the stones he has molten to the Lord and asks Him to touch them.
When Elder Bednar visited in September, he actually talked about this. I had never really thought about it, but Elder Bednar brought it up and asked why did the Lord touch the stones one at a time? Why did He touch them at all? The Lord could have caused them to glow in any number of ways, so why did He touch them? Elder Bednar suggested that it was an opportunity for the brother of Jared to exercise his faith. Mahonri was able to see the finger of the Lord not because the Lord made a mistake. It was because he exercised his faith and did not doubt the Lord would grant unto his supplication.
Now, one has to wonder, what changed in Mahonri? We already know he had great faith. The Lord had already appeared to him dozens, perhaps hundreds of times already. It was always in a cloud before, but Mahonri already knew the Lord existed and he had a pretty good knowledge of the Lord's nature I believe. So why was this time any different? As I was sitting here pondering this question a thought occurred to me. What if this was the first time the Lord had required the brother of Jared to come up with the solution on his own?
We do not know much about Mahonri's life prior to the Tower of Babel. In fact we know nothing. But we do know that of the 4 questions he asked the Lord, that we know of, the Lord answered 3 of them outright and only this one did He require Mahonri to come up with the answer himself. What if this was the first time the Lord had done that to him? If that is the case that would have required great faith on the brother of Jared's part and would make a lot of sense why this time his faith would have grown so much.
I do not know if this is the right answer, as I said, it was what occurred to me as I sat here pondering this question. I think it takes more faith to come to the Lord with a plan you have come up with yourself and ask if it is alright than it does to just ask the Lord what you should do. It's kind of like we said yesterday, going to your boss and asking him/her what you should do, or coming to him/her saying, hey this happened and I handled it like this, is that ok? It's a much greater risk to take care of the issue yourself, THEN report it, but the rewards are so much greater.
The more I think on this, the more I think this is the right answer. It required a lot more faith on Mahonri's part because he was required to be part of the solution, not just a receptacle for knowledge from the Lord's part. As we exercise our agency and become agents to act, as Elder Bednar is always saying, we are exercising true faith. Because as we know faith is belief followed by action. Faith without action is incomplete. We must act on the knowledge we have been given or in the part we have been allowed to participate in, like Mahonri was allowed to do, and we will grow. I'm sure I have said it before on here, but we are never standing still in the gospel, or life really. We either progressing or we are regressing. If we stop moving forward we will actually move backwards, like walking on a moving sidewalk that is going the wrong way.
It is vitally important that we act and not just be acted upon, so important that 1/3 of Heavenly Father's children lost their chance of a mortal body because they disagreed with the idea before the earth was created. When we choose to act we are exercising our most important right, one that will never ever be taken away from us. We can however voluntarily give it up, through addictions and other sins. But always remember, no one forced you to sin, in 99% of the cases anyway. You chose the path you are on and thus voluntarily gave up your agency. Don't give it up wantonly. Make sure you offer it instead to your Heavenly Father and use it to build the Kingdom. It's what you fought for before you were born! Until tomorrow.
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