Post by Lemhi –
Why are we so quick to forget? Why is the Lord continually required to wake us up? As I tell the story of the people led by my grandfather, you will notice as I continue my story, that my father’s people and even my people only a few years apart did also need to be awakened to a remembrance.
Now I continue with my grandfather’s record. It had only been 12 years when the Lamanite King, King Laman began to grow uneasy with the prosperity of the Nephites whom he had permitted to inhabit the land. Under the leadership of my grandfather Zeniff, the people had become quite settled and productive. They were becoming so strong that the Lamanite king feared the Lamanites would not be able to overpower them and bring them into bondage.
Just as the inconsistency of the faithfulness of the Nephites was consistent. The laziness and idolatry of the Lamanites were consistent. The Lamanites had no desire to be productive like the Nephites, they simply wanted to bring the Nephites into bondage and glut themselves on the labor of the Nephites’ hands, and feast on the flocks in our fields.
So King Laman began an active campaign to get his people to contend with the people of Zeniff. And thus, within a dozen years wars and contentions began.
In year 13, along the southern border of Shilom, the Nephites people were watering and feeding their flocks and tilling the ground, a sizable host of Lamanites attacked and began slaying those tending the flocks and fields, stealing the flocks and the corn from the fields.
Survivors fled to the city of Nephi and went to my grandfather Zeniff seeking protection. If you remember, Zeniff was part of a military operation and was one of the spies who first saw this land. He certainly knew his way around a battlefield. For many years there had not been a direct need for weapons, yet Zeniff was able to arm his people with bows, arrows, swords, cimeters, clubs, slings, and about any other weapon they could invent. Once armed, Zeniff led his people against the Lamanites in battle.
The other weapon of war, which may be the most important one of all is prayer. Grandfather says they went to battle “in the strength of the Lord.” He and his people prayed mightily to the Lord for deliverance from the hands of the Lamanites. And as he said, “thus, they were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers.”
God always hears the cries of His children, yet sometimes our speed to harken to His councils is in direct correlation to the speed that he delivers us from our afflictions. This was one of those times when the harkening was timely. When Zeniff’s people went forth, they went forth in His might, and over the course of one day and one night, 3,043 Lamanites were killed. They fought until the Nephites had driven the Lamanites out of the land.
Among the dead of the enemy, which my grandfather helped bury, the Nephites only lost 279, slain by the hand of the Lamanites. The rejoicing in victory is always tempered by the cost of that victory and in this case though the cost of 279 vs. 3,043 seems worthy of rejoicing. Yet, how often is our deliverance only necessitated because of our own initial foolish choices.
Book of Mormon – Mosiah 9:10-19
