2.32 Active or Passive? What Will You Choose?

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends, great to have you with me.

Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Welcome to our readings for the Book of Mormon this week. We have been looking at 1 Nephi chapters 13 through 17.

We've also done Doctrine and Covenants sections 3-5 earlier in the week, so if you've missed those ones you're welcome to go back and take a listen. Today I'm going to be looking at the chapters of 1 Nephi 15 and 16. So, what's going on here?

Well, we're going to talk about the first chapter of chapter 16. As we have some interactions here, Nephi comes out of his vision that he's just had, a vision very similar to the vision that his father had. And he's going to have some interaction and teach some doctrine with his brothers in chapter 15.

And then in chapter 16, we're going to see kind of some more prophesying of sorts, right? And we're going to find the Liahona, which is pretty cool as that comes into play. Our verse for today comes inside of 1 Nephi chapter 15.

It's so interesting for those of you that are kind of going, "Oh my goodness, why does it seem like we're going so fast through the Book of Mormon?" Well, we are. Remember last year we were reading just the Book of Mormon every day. And so we were grabbing verses out every day.

But when we're reading Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon, if you feel like you're going double speed here, well, you kind of are, because we've taken on quite the wrestle here. Well done for whatever study you're doing. Stay in with it.

Do whatever you can. Do the best that you possibly can, and the Lord will take care of the rest. So with that, let's look at our verse for today here.

It's in 1 Nephi chapter 15. This is Nephi coming out of his vision and then running into his brothers. And his brothers are like, "Oh man, we don't understand anything that Dad talks about, right?" Like, that's what they're kind of saying.

They're like, "We don't even get what Dad's saying when he goes into like 'teacher mode.'" As my daughters would call it when I talk about it, they say I'm in "teacher mode" or my "teacher voice" is what they say. But that's what's happening here. And Nephi actually says, first of all, he's like, "Well, I'm just wondering, have you ever like asked God, right?" Like, "Have you ever prayed and wondered about it?" And that's what takes us to our verse for today. 1 Nephi chapter 15, verse 9.

And this is their response to Nephi. And they said unto me, "We have not, for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us." Now, my younger daughters and I, we're reading Saints right now. We're going through the history of the Saints by reading the Saints books.

You know, this came up in our conversation earlier and I want to bring it up here inside of this. It's interesting to me the differences in Nephi and his brothers here as we see in verses 8 and 9. Nephi has just come out of an experience seeing the same vision his Dad saw and probably even some more stuff around that.

And having this incredible experience because he asked God to see the same thing that his Dad saw. And then we find out here in verse 9 that Laman and Lemuel and those brothers, they said, "No, we didn't ask. The Lord doesn't make it known to us." The difference here is the difference in active versus passive.

Nephi, Joseph Smith, and many others throughout our history as we look at examples in the gospel are actively engaged in learning more from our Heavenly Father. And then there are those in the stories as well that take on a passive role. My friends, a question for me and a question for you today: Are you actively engaged in learning more about the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Or are you taking a passive role, hoping that the answers or the Spirit just happens to fall into your lap? That's what we're seeing inside of Laman and Lemuel's mindset here. We're seeing that they didn't even attempt to pray.

They were simply waiting for the Lord to explain it better. They didn't let the Lord know that they wanted to have it. They just waited on the Lord.

I love the active examples that we have scripturally that we can turn to. I love that what we read in Doctrine and Covenants this week shows some of that active role in terms of Martin Harris and what he was trying to do in terms of the three witnesses and what they were trying to do. I love the active role that people play.

It's a great reminder for me to be active with the Lord. When I'm praying, seek His will; seek to know what He wants for me in my life versus waiting passively, hoping that someday life might fall into my lap. That is a great lesson for all of us to take, my friends.

Be actively engaged rather than passively waiting on the Lord. That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave into the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt.