2 Nephi 4 – Lehi’s Blessings to his Grandchildren

In 2 Nephi 4 Lehi gives a blessing to the sons of Laman and Lemuel, his grand children. He says:

Wherefore, after my father had made an end of speaking concerning the prophecies of Joseph, he called the children of Laman, his sons, and his daughters, and said unto them: Behold, my sons, and my daughters, who are the sons and the daughters of my ^afirstborn, I would that ye should give ear unto my words. For the Lord God hath said that: ^aInasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; and inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. But behold, my sons and my daughters, I cannot go down to my grave save I should leave a ^ablessing upon you; for behold, I know that if ye are ^bbrought up in the ^cway ye should go ye will not depart from it. Wherefore, if ye are ^acursed, behold, I leave my blessing upon you, that the ^bcursing may be taken from you and be answered upon the ^cheads of your parents. Wherefore, because of my blessing the Lord God will ^anot suffer that ye shall perish; wherefore, he will be ^bmerciful unto you and unto your seed forever (2 Nephi 4.3-7)

There is a powerful principle here. Lehi realized that his grandchildren who were the sons and daughters of Laman and Lemuel were born into a situation of serious spiritual disadvantage. They were not going to be raised to know the Lord. And to Lehi this broke his heart. His prayer was that the Lord would be merciful unto them due to the extreme circumstances of their lives. He blessed them that the Lord would make allowances for their situation. I love this passage.

It speaks to me. I know of myself that this is true. I love all of the passages in the Old Testament where the prophets speak of Yahweh as the God who loves and cares for “orphans and widows”… I cannot express with words how important this is. The following is a story by Stephen Robinson where he speaks to these ideas, that God makes allowances for us as we all experience different “degrees of difficulty” in our lives. He wrote:

Many years ago, when I was somewhere between nine and eleven, I participated in a community summer recreation program in the town where I grew up. I remember in particular a diving competition for the different age groups held at the community swimming pool. Some of the wealthier kids in our area had their own pools with diving boards, and they were pretty good amateur divers. But there was one kid my age from the less affluent part of town who didn’t have his own pool. What he had was raw courage. While the rest of us did our crisp little swan dives, back dives, and jackknives, being ever so careful to arch our backs and point our toes, this young man attempted back flips, one-and-a-halfs, doubles, and so on. But, oh, he was sloppy. He seldom kept his feet together, he never pointed his toes, and he usually missed his vertical entry. The rest of us observed with smug satisfaction as the judges held up their scorecards that he consistently got lower marks than we did with our safe and simple dives, and we congratulated ourselves that we were actually the better divers. “He is all heart and no finesse,” we told ourselves. “After all, we keep our feet together and point our toes.”

The announcement of the winners was a great shock to us, for the brave young lad with the flips had apparently beaten us all. However, I had kept rough track of the scores in my head, and I knew with the arrogance of limited information that the math didn’t add up. I had consistently outscored the boy with the flips. And so, certain that an injustice was being perpetrated, I stormed the scorer’s table and demanded an explanation. “Degree of difficulty,” the scorer replied matter-of-factly as he looked me in the eye. “Sure, you had better form, but he did harder dives. When you factor in the degree of difficulty, he beat you hands down, kid.”

Until that moment I hadn’t known that some dives were awarded “extra credit” because of their greater difficulty. I have a friend to whom life has been unkind. Though she married in the temple, her husband proved unfaithful and eventually abandoned her and their small children. Since he has never paid a penny in child support, my friend works full time to support herself and her kids. For several years she also went to school at night to improve her financial situation. Therefore, of necessity, she could not be with her children as much as she would have liked and could not always give them the guidance and discipline they needed. It just wasn’t possible in her difficult circumstances. One result of her less-than-perfect family situation was troubled teenagers. Now in middle age she is faced with raising some of her grandchildren—again, all alone.

Without a faithful companion… without the blessings that are realized where the ideal family setting is possible, it is almost inevitable that my friend should feel that her “scores” as a wife and mother, and perhaps even as a person, aren’t very high. When she goes to church and sees other “ideal” LDS families, when she hears them bear their testimonies and give thanks for all their spiritual and temporal blessings, she sees in her mind the judges holding up scorecards that say 9.9 or 10.0. When she looks at her own life, her own failed marriage, her own troubled children, she knows that the scores are much lower, and she worries about her place in the kingdom. Well, she needn’t worry, for she is as faithful to her covenants in her troubles as the rest of us are in our blessings. True, there are some things she cannot do, but these are the result of her circumstances, not choices pursued by her own free will, and where there is no choice, there can be no condemnation. I have no doubt that when the “degree of difficulty” is factored in for the life she leads, her crown will shine brighter than many others, for God always factors into his judgments the “degree of difficulty.”^[1]Stephen E. Robinson, Following Christ: The Parable of the Divers and More Good News, Deseret Book, 2004, 34-37, emphasis added.