Lehi is accused by his family (particularly Laman and
Lemuel) so many times of being “a visionary man” who is “led away by the
foolish imaginations of his heart” that it seems to me we must spend some time
thinking about it and what it means.
It is possible Lehi had a tendency to get big ideas that
were too much for him to implement or that fizzled when he tried them or that
distracted him. If this had been a
common occurrence, it would be really easy for his family to roll their eyes at
his insistence they leave Jerusalem.
We have no idea if this was really the case because the Book of Mormon
only shows he was right and shows nothing indicating he was ever wrong. All we have is the frequent repetition
of “visionary man” or “led by the foolish imaginations of his heart,” which
hint at incidents of failure.
Looked at from this perspective (which is a speculative one,
I might add) we start to understand the extraordinary faith it took for Lehi to
lead his family out into the wilderness and for his family to follow. Lehi had a vision, yes, but would his
family believe him? From
this perspective, Laman and Lemuel’s concerns appear much more rational, and
Nephi’s faith seems even more amazing.
We begin to see why Nephi had to pray for his own witness that his
father was doing the right thing.
If Lehi hadn’t had a past history of fizzled big ideas why would he need
to? We see how much reason Sariah
had to rejoice when her son actually did
return with the brass plates, obtained under such miraculous conditions. It was a sign that God really was behind it!
It is one thing to follow someone who is always right and
whose grand ideas always work out, but it is quite another to follow someone
who has had lots of grand ideas in the past that didn’t work out. How
does one know if this person is really inspired?
This question is also one I ask of myself, since I have had
a lot of big ideas that never quite came to fruition (although I’ve had a
pretty fair number that have worked too).
Failure has happened enough that I often find myself feeling rather
Laman-and-Lemuel-ish toward myself, wondering, “Okay, is this another one of
THOSE ideas?” This is one reason
why I am grateful for my patriarchal blessing and for the scriptures and the prophets’
words. I try to measure my
aspirations and dreams and “brilliant ideas” by them.
Sometimes we talk about Laman and Lemuel as if their
arguments had no basis in reality.
But when we consider that they had very good reason for their concerns
in this aspect, they become real opponents, not strawmen, which then makes
Nephi’s acts and words of faith and the miracles of the family’s preservation all
the more powerful.
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