Reading Mosiah 7 today I got to thinking about the difference all the background things in a person's life make in their present experience. The three Nephite kings placed side by side in this chapter come from very different places. Mosiah is the first. Relatively recently anointed king by his famous father, Mosiah is the beneficiary of the powerful effect that his father's life and final sermon have had on the people. Benjamin's words and the covenant the people made as a result still resonate powerfully. Three years of righteousness, peace, and prosperity free up the collective headspace of the people to wonder now about their brethren who had departed years ago seeking to resettle the land of Lehi-Nephi. A search party of 16 strong men is assembled and they set out to find that which is lost. Firmly footed in this this background, Mosiah's orientation is to reconnect and reunite.
Mosiah's strong men find the second Nephite king in a much more desperate circumstance. Son of a wicked idolatrous king, Limhi is on edge. When his would be deliverers are found at the city gates, his swirling and overwhelming context keeps him from seeing who they really are. He imprisons them thinking they must be part of a group of former priests to his father who had helped get to them into their present sticky circumstance. Trembling both with fear and anger, oppressed Limhi's oreinetation is revenge - a terribly mistaken one for the reality of his present circumstance, I might add. Yet terribly true to his context.
Limhi's circumstance can be traced back in time to the third Nephite king mentioned in this chapter, his grandfather, Zenniff. Zenniff made a terrible miscalculation of his own situation that started all this trouble for his grandson. Blinded by his own overzealousness, he misreads the motives of the Lamanite king, and places his people in danger. What could have been the cause of his zeal? Could it be nostalgia -- a yearning for the good old days and the way things were back in the land of Lehi-Niphi? If so, Zenniff's orientation may have been to relive the past. Had he been able to see the future his focus provided for generations to come, he would surely have reasoned differently.
Mosiah, Limhi, and Zenniff - these three Nephite kings are so dramatically influenced by the perspective that their past has created for them, that it couldn't be coincidence to see them set side by side in this chapter, could it? Maybe it's my perspective -- and how my perceptions of my classes, students, ward, and family have been influenced by recent unrelated, yet taxing, events. Maybe it's not understanding the perspectives of some around me - perspectives that seem to hold them back. Why would they not accept the outreached hand of thier Savior to them?
In one of these stories, the middle one, there is a dramatic change in perspective - Limhi sees Ammon for who he really is when he gives him the chance to speak. Oppressor to redeemer, hindrance to help, night to day, because of the chance to explain. What chances to be freed am I (are others) potentially missing due in part to the lack of a clarifying explanation of what reality is? Most importantly though, because Ammon is a Christ type in this story, misunderstood and imprisoned by those who he would deliver from bondage, How can I find Him disguised in my present and help others do the same? I'm not sure of all of the words that should be part of that answer yet, but from Ammon's example, one of them should be "Speak."
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