Today I read Ether 6 where the Jaredites travel via barges to the promised land. This chapter almost makes my brain hurt as I think of the sheer logistics of the entire chapter. They are in these barges 344 days. That's only 21 days shy of a year! Now there are 8 barges and 22 people, plus all their provisions and their animals. So if they split up the people evenly that is less than 3 people per barge! So you don't have many people to talk to, plus there's all the other problems. Where did they go to the bathroom? How gently did the barges turn when they would flip over? And lastly, I would not have volunteered to ride over with the bees! :)
I bring this up to one, have a quick laugh, but also to point out the sheer planning capacity of the Lord. Just like with the Israelites and Moses, the Lord knew what all was going to be required for His people to be safe and He took care of it. For all we know, the Lord may have told Mahonri to put all the animals into other barges so that they would all be safe and the Lord sent angels to care for the animals or just calmed them, etc. The bottom line is the Lord had it all under control.
Now if the Lord can handle something so mind blowing as this, can't He help you with your problems? We fall into this trap from time to time of not believing the Lord can or perhaps will help us. We think He has better things to do, or perhaps He doesn't love us enough or whatever reason we imagine up in our hearts. We need to understand that God has the power to help us with our concerns and problems, also that He wants to.
The other part of this chapter that I find intriguing is how in scripture the constant, almost irrational, desire for a king. I've never understood people's desires for kings and their almost paranoid desire for them. I guess people just need to have someone in charge. They need to have someone, besides the Lord I guess, to go to for problems. Someone that can settle disputes, etc. It amuses me that the Israelites had people to do that for them, but they wanted a king anyway.
With the Jaredites I think it is different. I think they were looking to Jared and to his brother to be that person, or people, for them and now faced with the prospect of losing their leaders, this is why they desired a king. Poor Mahonri knew right away it was a bad idea, uttering the prophecy that giving them a king would lead to captivity. How right he was! But Jared convinced him to let them have their king.
Now, a word or two about kings. As Mosiah stated, if the people could always have righteous men to be their king, it would be a great idea to have kings. However, the Lord teaches us in D&C 121 that unfortunately you can take a good man, give him power and suddenly he changes and immediately begins to exercise unrighteous dominion. It is really sad to watch too. I watched a good friend of mine on my mission change radically when he was given some authority. I am happy to say he eventually came around and went back to being the man I had met and admired, but for several months, well the word tyrant comes to mind. Mahonri knows this and this is why he does not want to grant his people their desire.
Nephi knew it too. When the Nephites broke off from the Lamanites when they first arrived in the promised land, his people wanted him to be their king and he not only refused but tried to talk them out of having a king at all. Now, we keep using the word king, but this applies to any system of government, or people, where the power is given to all one person. Dictators come to mind such as Adolf Hitler. Communist governments such as China under Chairman Mao ze dong come to mind too. You can even see it among children at times when they play and appoint someone to be their leader. With children though if the child selected starts behaving out of line, the other children just start ignoring him/her. Sadly with a government that is not an option.
This is why it is so very important to pick good leaders and to make sure that we are selecting good men and women to lead us. This is also another reason we need to always remain close to the Lord. He wants to help us and be happy so He will help us choose good leaders if we will listen. And we must always listen to the prophet and his counsel to us also. He will lead us in the right ways of the Lord. The prophets are humble men who do not desire the power given them and are way more concerned with the Lord and what He wants than the world. If we could only have such men (and women) to lead us politically too! Until tomorrow.
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