Imagine having a son who never questions your wisdom and follows your counsel and guidance with exactness, never wavering. Imagine having a son who does not think your ideas are outdated and your dreams foolishness. A son who is willing to follow you to the ends of the earth and who respects your patriarchal leadership within the family. Imagine a son who never shirks from what you ask of him no matter how hard the task. One who has complete trust in God and never deviates from his commitment to Him. A son who knows his limitations and strengths yet never allows pride to lift him higher than his fellow beings. This was Nephi.
What a delight this man must have been to his parents. Lehi would never have succeeded in putting his foot on the promised land if it were not for his obedient son. Besides the physical requirements of such a journey which were beyond Lehi in his later years, such as obtaining the brass plates, hunting for food and building a ship, one other instance stands out to prove this theory. When Nephi broke his bow and the family were facing dire consequences from want of food, even his father began to murmur against God together with the rest of the family (1 Nephi 16:20). It must have looked to Nephi like the whole enterprise of this little colony was at peril of falling apart giving way to mutiny if his father lost focus so Nephi chose to be proactive and mend the situation. He made a bow of wood and proceeded to ask his father where he should go to hunt (1 Nephi 16:23). It would have been so easy for Nephi to step in right there and then and take over as the leader of his family. After all, he came up with the solution and he brought the relief. He was showing initiative as a leader. Nephi, however, knew that the journey to the promised land had to be under the leadership of him who first received the revelation and he also knew that all credit for guidance and deliverance had to be given to God (1 Nephi 16:29), so he asked his father where he should go to hunt. How useless Lehi would have felt had his son undermined him by taking matters into his own hands. Instead Nephi placed him back on the path of leadership and repentance before the Lord. So Nephi not only provided his father with physical support but a spiritual one also.
Perhaps in no other way was Nephi more Christ-like than in the principle of obedience. What enalbled Nephi to be so completely obedient to a god who did not spare him from hardships and perils of life? Nephi himself gives us the answer to this question: 'to follow God, one must want God'. Early in Nephi's record he states plainly that he sought to understand the mysteries of God and that this seeking alone bore such fruit that he had no desire to rebel against his father or against God (1 Nephi 2:16). Knowing God and having God in our lives therefore is the first step towards the ability to be obedient. The second most important thing that Nephi did was make God his partner in life. This he did by swearing with an oath when he had to accomplish difficult tasks, such as obtain the brass plates. On more than one occasion Nephi uttered the words "As the Lord liveth" cementing his determination to achieve the desired end. Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained the significance of this statement:
"This matter of swearing with an oath in ancient days was far more significant than many of us have realised. For instance: Nephi and his brethren were seeking to obtain the brass plates from Laban. Their lives were in peril. Yet Nephi swore this oath: 'As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us' (1 Nephi 3:15). Thus Nephi made God his partner. If he failed to get the plates, it meant God had failed. And because God does not fail, it was incumbent upon Nephi to get the plates or lay down his life in the attempt." (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, C.R. April 1982, pp 49,50)
Hugh Nibley's explanation of the significance of the words of the oath helps us understand further Nephi's seriousness of this partnership:
"....the oath is the one thing that is most sacred and inviolable among the desert people: 'Hardly will an Arab break this oath, even if his life be in jeopardy,' for 'there is nothing stronger, and nothing more sacred than the oath among the nomads,' and even among the city Arabs, if it be exacted under special conditions. But not every oath will do: to be most binding and solemn an oath should be by the life of something, even if it be but a blade of grass; the only oath more awful than 'by my life' or (less commonly) 'by the life of my head,' is the wa hayat Allah, 'by the life of God,' or 'as the Lord liveth'....." (Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol. 5, Part 1, p 103-104)
Nephi was true to his word in making God his partner. He demonstrated this over and over again as he showed his dependence on Him: "..... no one on the trip was asked to do more than Nephi - he obtained the plates, made a bow, foraged for food, scrambled to mountaintops to pray, made plates and built a ship. Yet he intimately came to know that all he could do was not enough, for 'it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do' (2 Nephi 25:23). In the wilderness, when the righteous come face to face with their limitations, they see that God is there to take up the slack." (Scot and Maurine Proctor, BOM Lesson 5 "Hearken to the Truth and Give Heed Unto It", Meridian Magazine, January 19, 2016). Part of being dependent on God means to have trust in Him and Nephi did just that. He was not spared or excused from any difficulties of the journey that were suffered by his brothers. On the contrary, he had more of them. What Nephi did learn through these difficulties was the Lord's power of deliverance (1 Nephi 1:20, 17:3, 18:16, 18:11). The examples throughout his life are endless and because of them he was able to exclaim: "O Lord, I have trusted in thee and I will trust in thee forever" (2 Nephi 4:34).
'I must obey'
(2 Nephi 33:15).
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