My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Mormon 1-6 in a lesson titled “I Would That I Could Persuade All … to Repent.” The lesson was introduced with the following information.
Mormon spared us the “full account” of the
“awful scene” of wickedness and bloodshed that he saw among the Nephites (Mormon
2:18; 5:8). But what he did record in Mormon 1-6 is enough to remind
us how far people who were once righteous can fall. Amid such pervasive
wickedness, no one could blame Mormon for becoming weary and even discouraged.
Yet through all that he saw and experienced, he never lost his sense of God’s
great mercy and his conviction that repentance is the way to receive it. And
although Mormon’s own people rejected his pleading invitations to repent, he
knew that he had a larger audience to persuade. “Behold,” he declared, “I write
unto all the ends of the earth.” In other words, he wrote to you (see Mormon
3:17-20). And his message to you, today, is the same message that could have
saved the Nephites in their day: “Believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. … Repent
and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ” (Mormon 3:21-22).
Mormon’s
story of preserving the records of the Nephites can be seen in this video
titled “Mormon Preserves the Record” (26:37 minutes). As with most Come Follow
Me lessons, this lesson covers several principles: (1) I can follow Jesus
Christ regardless of what other people do (Mormon 1-6), (2) They did not
realize that it was the Lord that had spared them (Mormon 3:3, 9), and (3) Jesus
Christ stands with open arms to receive me (Mormon 5:8-24; 6:16-22).
This
lesson will discuss a fourth principle, “Godly sorrow leads me to Christ and to
lasting change (Mormon 2:10-15. We will begin with the scripture block.
10 And
it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began
to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet; for behold no man
could keep that
which was his own, for the thieves, and the robbers, and the murderers, and the
magic art, and the witchcraft which was in the land.
11 Thus there began to
be a mourning and
a lamentation in all the land because of these things, and more especially
among the people of Nephi.
12 And it came to pass
that when I, Mormon, saw their lamentation and their mourning and
their sorrow before the Lord, my heart did begin to rejoice within me, knowing
the mercies and the long-suffering of the Lord, therefore supposing that he
would be merciful unto them that they would again become
a righteous people.
13 But behold this my
joy was vain, for their sorrowing was
not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of
the damned, because
the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in
sin.
14 And they did not come
unto Jesus with broken hearts and
contrite spirits, but they did curse God,
and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their
lives.
15 And it came to pass
that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with
them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in
open rebellion against
their God, and heaped up as dung upon
the face of the land. And thus three hundred and forty and four years had
passed away (Mormon 2:10-15).
Mormon
saw that his people were sorrowful, and he hoped that they would repent.
However, he realized that “their sorrowing was not unto repentance” (Mormon
2:13). They did not feel godly sorrow but worldly sorrow. The difference
between the two types of sorrow can be seen in verse 14: Godly sorrow moves
people closer to Christ, while worldly sorrow causes people to curse God.
Sister Michelle D. Craig, then First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, said the following in the October 2018 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
These prophetic calls to
action, coupled with our innate sense that we can do and be more, sometimes create
within us what Elder Neal A. Maxwell called “divine discontent.” Divine
discontent comes when we compare “what we are [to] what we have the power to become.” Each of us,
if we are honest, feels a gap between where and who we are, and where and who
we want to become. We yearn for greater personal capacity. We have these
feelings because we are daughters and sons of God, born with the Light of
Christ yet living in a fallen world. These feelings are God given and create an
urgency to act. [Emphasis added.]
We should welcome feelings
of divine discontent that call us to a higher way, while recognizing and
avoiding Satan’s counterfeit—paralyzing discouragement. This is a precious
space into which Satan is all too eager to jump. We can choose to walk the higher
path that leads us to seek for God and His peace and grace, or we can listen to
Satan, who bombards us with messages that we will never be enough: rich enough,
smart enough, beautiful enough, anything enough. Our discontent can become
divine—or destructive.
Heavenly
Father and His Son Jesus Christ live on a higher, holier level than mere
mortals like you and me. IF we want to return to Their presence and to become
like Them, then we must prepare ourselves to do so. One of the ways that we can
move to a higher level is to allow divine discontent to help each of us to become
the person that we want and need to be.
