Highly Favored

When Nephi stated at the beginning of the Book of Mormon that he has seen many afflictions, nevertheless he had been highly favored of the Lord, the afflictions were not what made him unique. Nephi, for the most part, suffered the same afflictions that Laman and Lemuel and all of the rest of their family suffered. They all wandered in the desert for most of a decade. They went hungry, they ate raw meat, they had to do without the warmth and light of fires at night. Nevertheless, Nephi, specifically, was highly favored of the Lord. It was not his afflictions that defined Him, but the favor He had obtained from God. Being God’s favorite does not exempt us from hard times. But going through hard times is not the only factor in helping us become favored of the Lord, either. Nephi was highly favored of the Lord because when times were tough, he softened his heart, he went to his knees in prayer, he watered his pillow at night with his tears. When he broke his bow, he didn’t slump to the ground and say, I guess I’ll die and curse God while I’m at it. He grabbed a couple of sticks and made himself a new bow. When God told him to build a boat, he didn’t cross his arms and tell God, all right, you drop a bag of tools in my lap and I’ll see about building this boat. Hard times are coming for all of us, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to learn and grow or complain and shrink. We are not defined by the amount of suffering we endure, but by the degree that we allow that suffering to help or hinder us in our quest to learn and to grow and to become like God. We can choose to curse God because life is not fair, or we can choose to draw near unto God, to show Him that we are determined to give him our heart, our might, our mind and our strength to overcome this challenge, and the next one after that, and to prove to Him and to ourselves that we will do everything that He asks of us. As we allow our afflictions to open up our hearts to the grace and light of Christ, as we turn to him in our sorrows to be comforted, as we take His yoke upon us and partake of the enabling power of His Atonement, we become more and more favored of the Lord. We don’t always have a choice in the afflictions that are headed our way, but we can choose how we react to those afflictions, whether they will lead us to God so that we may partake of His grace and His favor, or whether we will choose to turn our back on God and curse the unfairness of our circumstances and reject God’s favor and His grace.