I Nephi 4:6 – NOT KNOWING BEFOREHAND THE THINGS WHICH I SHOULD DO

“And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.”

I think this is one of the great lessons in the Book of Mormon because it applies to so much that we each do every single day.

How many times in your life have you been going along, not knowing what to do next, but trusting in the Lord that he wouldn’t let you fail?  For me, that’s happened many, many times.  I think the secret here is to continue moving forward, just like Nephi did.  It would have been easy for Nephi to sit outside the walls of Jerusalem and ponder what he should do … to “wait” until he had a solid answer.  But what if he had waited?  Perhaps Laban wouldn’t have still been there.  Maybe there would have been others around if he had waited.  But the key is that Nephi kept moving forward and trusted in the Lord.  (Do you ever get the feeling that Nephi was a doer?  He didn’t sit around and murmur.  He didn’t give up when he was asked to build a boat strong enough to sail half-way around the world.  He didn’t go back before he got the brass plates.)  Nephi lived righteously, pressed forward, and then trusted the in the Spirit to guide him.

I’d like to share with you a time I felt this applied to my life when I was much younger.  I know you’ve heard about several of my missionary experiences in England years ago, but I’d like to share one with you where I felt this scripture was written for me.

It was a day in February or March (about this time of year) in 1976.  My companion and I were visiting a small branch in Eastbourne, East Sussex, which is on the English Channel on the South coast of England.  The branch was so small that a missionary was serving as the Branch President.  We were there to offer our support to the missionary companionship.  After early morning priesthood meeting (this was back in the day before the three-hour block) my companion and I decided we would go do some “tracting.”  (In other words, go and knock on doors.)  We weren’t very familiar with the area and we didn’t have an area book.  We just drove.  Well, there came a point when I asked myself, “Am I just driving so I don’t have to get out and work, or is there a reason we are driving to the outer parts of the town?”  But I knew we were doing the Lord’s work and I knew we were entitled to his guidance.   Finally, we came to what seemed to be the last street before the countryside took over.  We got out of our car and started knocking on the doors of this street.

Door after door we were rejected.  I remember it was cold and there was a wind coming off the English Channel that felt like it went right through you.  Needless to say, it would have been very easy to give up.  But for some reason we continued.  One man told us, in not too kind of language, that the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” had just been on the street 15 minutes before.  Now that really gave us a reason to go somewhere else … but we didn’t.  We didn’t feel we needed to.  We didn’t have any idea why, but we continued.

After many homes we knocked on the door of a home and a single woman, Mrs. Fergusson, answered.  We explained to her very briefly about the Lord having prophets on the earth today.  She was interested and invited us in.  As we sat down she introduced us to her 9 year-old daughter.  We continued to teach her about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  She gently took the Book of Mormon and told us she would read it.  She then shared with us a somber experience.  She told us that she and her daughter were facing so much sadness and so many challenges that it she felt it would be best to turn on the gas in their kitchen oven and end their lives.

We were able to tell her that we knew the Lord had sent us to her with this message of hope.  We told her we came because Heavenly Father loved her and her daughter.  We prayed with them.  We invited her to read the Book of Mormon and left, promising that our missionary friends in Eastbourne would visit her during the week.

Our friends reported to us later that week that when they visited the Fergusson’s she said, “You’re here to collect (take) the book back, aren’t you?”  The missionaries assured her that she could keep the book.  Mrs. Fergusson was so relieved because, she told them, “I’m only about half-way through and I want to finish it.  I know it’s the word of God.”

Within two weeks the Fergusson’s were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

I promise that we were “led by the spirit” to Mrs. Fergusson “not knowing beforehand the things which “we” should do.”  The Lord knew Mrs. Fergusson and her daughter needed the message of the restored gospel at that very moment.  He knew it would save their lives, both physically and spiritually.  He made it possible at that very moment, through two of his missionaries, to bring about a modern-day miracle and fulfillment of ancient scripture.