Willing Obedience

This morning, I'd like to write about Obedience, partly because it's one of the basic elements of the gospel, and partly because we learned about Obedience yesterday afternoon in Teachings For Our Times. But as I read through the chapter on Obedience in the  Gospel Principles manual, I'm seeing that there are too many facets to the principle of Obedience to cover them all in one blog post, so I'll just cover one aspect of Obedience, namely being willing to obey.





Sometimes, God asks us to do things that seem difficult, or that we don't fully understand, but those who obey the will of the Lord will be on the right path, even if everyone in the world (perhaps including themselves), thinks they're wrong. God knows better than we do, always.

In my Political Ramblings yesterday, I came across a problem. We can't force righteousness on society, and even if we could, it would be the wrong thing to do. At the same time, it's also a bad idea to permit wickedness to exist in society. Personally, I think that people should be mostly free to make their own choices, even if that means they're free to make bad choices. Laws should protect people from each other, but perhaps not from themselves. My personal stance on this issue is that people should be free to live their own lives, as long as they're not hurting anybody. But God knows better than I do.

Nephi's personal stance on a certain moral issue was "Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not kill." But he knew it was the will of God for him to get the plates from Laban somehow. So, first he just asked for them, and that didn't work. And then he tried to buy them, and that didn't work. Then, acting under the direction of the holy spirit, Nephi was given an opportunity to kill Laban and steal the plates. Nephi knew this was morally wrong, and Nephi told God that. If it were just up to him (Nephi), he would have tried to find another way. But God understood things better than Nephi did (and than most of us do now).

Normally, yes, killing and stealing are absolutely totally wrong. But in this case, God knew otherwise.

Normally, we're supposed to vote according to our conscience, and normally, my conscience says to live and let live. But in this case, God knows better.

"When God speaks, and man obeys, that man will always be right."

Sometimes, God asks us to do things that are difficult, that are unpopular, or that don't seem to make any sense. When that happens, will we be like Laman and Lemuel, and trust in our own wisdom (or foolishness) rather than trusting in God? Or will we, like Nephi, obey the voice of the Lord in the things He commands us to do?