As I share this last post on chapters 31 and 32 of 2 Nephi, I am filled with amazement and wonder at how the Lord works in the lives of those who seek after him. Everything is perfectly timed, perfectly designed, and perfectly executed to bring about our greatest happiness. Our greatest struggles are our greatest opportunities to lean on the Lord and ask him why we are going through them.
I started this blog because the Lord told me to. I was hesitant to share any of my thoughts with random and anonymous people on the internet, much less so with people I know. I am, at once, grateful that he told me to do it and embarrassed that I didn’t think to share these things with others sooner on my own. And while I pray with every post that it will help someone—anyone—come to feel greater and greater measures of God’s love, I cannot imagine that happening to anyone more than it has happened to me.
By the time Nephi reaches these two verses at the end of chapter 32, he has laid out, in plainness, the doctrine of Christ in chapter 31, clarified what some might misunderstand of that doctrine in the first six verses of chapter 32, and lamented—in verse seven—the fact that people (who have already “entered in by the way”) still won’t understand what he is trying to say.
Putting ourselves in Nephi’s shoes for a moment, and attempting to feel the desperation and hopelessness he might feel with the inadequacy of his written words to convince anyone of what it takes to have Christ “manifest himself unto [them] in the flesh,” we ought to pause and consider that, more often than not—almost always, in fact—people are just not going to “get it.” And, remember, Nephi isn’t talking to people who haven’t encountered the Book of Mormon or who have rejected it. He is talking to people who have “entered in by the way.” He’s talking to people who have had a remission of sins and who have started in the strait and narrow path. If we think that we are one of those people, we should be sober about whether or not we might also fall into this category of people that Nephi is so obviously concerned about. The odds are very good that we will.
To my mind, verses 8 and 9 of chapter 32 are Nephi’s last-ditch effort to try to help us advance along the strait and narrow path, even though he knows most us will not.
8 And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.
What is “this thing” that Nephi is talking about? Many people read the last sentence of verse 8 and think that Nephi is defining what “this thing” is, but he isn’t. In that last sentence, Nephi is interrupting the flow of information to explain why he is “speak[ing] concerning this thing” and to lament that he even has to mention “this thing.” He is saying that “...if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray;” and he wouldn’t even have to mention “this thing.” But he does mention it in the next verse, which means that we don’t pray—not like we should, anyway. And so what spirit are we listening to?
“the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.”
Truth! No wonder Nephi laments.
So what is “this thing?” Continuing in verse 9:
9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.
Man, I love definitions! It’s interesting to me that “faint” can be read as either a verb or as an adverb in this verse—using it for contrast against either the verb “pray” or the adverb “always”—but both uses convey similar ideas. When used as an verb, “faint” means “to become feeble; to decline or fail in strength or vigor; to be weak.” It means “to sink into dejection” and “to lose courage or spirit.” It can also be read as an adverb—“weakly,” “feebly,” “languid,” “inclined to swoon,” “exhausted,” “cowardly,” “not vigorous,” “not active,” “dejected,” “depressed,” “dispirited.”
When I was much younger, I used to read these two verses and think, “Really? Nephi’s last admonition to us is just to pray?”
Which is, undoubtedly, a revelation to anyone about just how feeble and weak my prayers were.
If you open your ears to listen, verse 9 is a reverberation of verses 14-16 of chapter 31:
14 But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me.
15 And I heard a voice from the Father, saying: Yea, the words of my Beloved are true and faithful. He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
16 And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.
Think the strait and narrow path is going to be easy and carefree? Nope. Think that you will never come to a point where you might “deny [him]?” Think again. We had better expect it to be hard. We had better expect it to bring us to the point where we, along with our prayers, are weak, feeble, exhausted, cowardly, and dispirited—where we might lack strength or vigor. And it won’t, necessarily, be because we slack in our efforts. If we are advancing along the path, it will be because what lies on the path ahead of us will require a strength in prayer that we have not previously attained.
Advancement along the path is a high stakes game. When the Son says to Nephi that, if we should deny him once we have entered in by the way, it would have been better to have not known him, he isn’t joking. It is only those who endure who are saved, and if you don’t endure, you cannot be saved. Returning to Nephi’s words in verse 9 of chapter 32, we find out exactly what is at stake: it is the welfare of our own soul.
The word “soul” evokes some deep meaning for me. It designates those parts of us that are central and eternal—everything that makes us who we are. Nephi’s last admonition to pray becomes priceless as we realize how difficult parts of the path are, how unavoidable and mandatory those parts of the path are, how much we stand to lose if we don’t traverse and endure those parts of the path, and how needful it is to draw upon the Lord for his strength, wisdom, courage, and love as we come to them.
The doctrine of Christ is strait and narrow. It is a path that requires exact obedience and total submission. It requires holding fast to the rod of iron (or God’s word) and only letting go to advance your grip—and, even then, Nephi’s counsel to us is that we not do anything at all until and unless we have prayed mightily to the Father in the name of Christ. It is only in doing “this thing” that we can be assured that everything we do will be consecrated by the Father “for the welfare of [our] soul.”