Day 28 Nephi's Unquestioning Faith and Finding the Tools

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I am cheering for your every success. Welcome to day 28 on our 365-day journey.

This is not only four weeks, but we're coming up on our first month of reading. And look at the progress we have made! We are coming up to not too far off of the end of 1 Nephi, which means we've just about completed the first book of the Book of Mormon already.

Well done on your progress there. If you're joining me on the 365-day journey of reading the Book of Mormon a little bit each day, today you're going to be reading 1 Nephi chapter 17, verses 1 through 17, actually. About the first half of the chapter or so, maybe about the first third.

We're going to spend a few days here in 1 Nephi 17, which is awesome because we're in the middle of another adventure with Nephi, and he's going to be building a ship. Which is kind of crazy because I don't know if Nephi knew how to build a ship. We're going to find out about that in the story a little bit.

Let's go into the verse today. Verse 9 is the verse that I have selected today for the readings. Nephi has just been told that he's going to construct a ship by the Lord.

Now, I don't know what your kind of responses would be if the Lord prompted you. I love Nephi's response here. Of all the ways that Nephi could respond: "Lord, what am I supposed to do?" "How do I build a ship?" "Oh my goodness, what am I going to do with a ship?" Or, "Could you help me understand the context of building a ship?" Or, you know, all the things that go through my mind in terms of questioning the command.

And Nephi doesn't question the command. He immediately throws the command into his mind and says, "Well, let's see, in order to build this ship, I'm going to need tools with the..." "I don't have tools." So, "Okay, Lord, where do I go to find the stuff to make tools?" And I think that shows a really interesting response from Nephi. One, it shows intense faith in the Lord.

That if the Lord said he's going to do it... in fact, a little honorable mention here to verse 3 in this chapter, I'm not going to go into it, but it's at least the third time that Nephi has told us, "Hey folks, if the Lord tells you to do something, he's going to provide a way to accomplish the thing he commands." So we see this now as a repetitive nature of Nephi, and he's learned to accept the Lord's commands in his life at a level that it's not questioning the command. It's not wondering how in the world I'm supposed to do this. It's not questioning whether it would be effective in my family or whether the Lord's really talking to me.

Maybe he's just talking to people in general. No. Instead, Nephi hears the word of the Lord.

And says, "Okay, what's it going to look like to implement this?" And, "Where do I go to get the tools to implement it?" I absolutely love the faith that we're going to see with Nephi here. In fact, in chapter 17, we're going to talk about some amazing things that Nephi shows with his faith inside this chapter. And this is just the beginning of them.

Where do I go to make the tools? So I want to encourage you: if you're prompted, do the thing. If you receive the whisper, "Hey, go do this." Follow the prompting.

Go do the thing. And if you have no idea how to do it, then ask the Lord, "Where do I go to find the resources to do this?" And the Lord will absolutely answer those prayers that you ask. Because we find out in verse 10 that the Lord did just that.

He said, "Oh, okay, Nephi, here, this is where you need to go." And Nephi was able to find the ore and create the tools needed to create the ship. The command wasn't, "Go find tools." The command was, "Go get the ship done." Huge goal, huge dream, probably bigger than Nephi could even imagine. And yet he was willing to say, "Okay, first step is I need tools." So, "Heavenly Father, help me with the first step." And Heavenly Father responded.

I love it. I love it. I hope that you dream big and that you follow the promptings and that you do the thing when the Spirit commands you to do the thing.

That's all for today. Remember that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." You mean like building ships, like Nephi? Yes, that's exactly what I mean. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt.

I'll be here tomorrow. I hope you are too.