I was out for a walk a few months ago, and I overheard a few words from a conversation between a woman and a teenage boy, whom I assume was her son. The mother was speaking in earnest:
“God gave you a brain, and He expects you to use it!” When I hear Latter-day Saints talk like this, it unsettles me.
It is true. “Be smart,” President Hinckley instructed the youth of the Church. I am the first proponent of getting all kinds of education. A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, Joseph Smith tells us. But what knowledge of what kind?
God has commanded His people to develop their minds, but I do not believe He is very impressed with our intellects, however good it is to expand and exercise them. He gave monkeys, cows, fish, rabbits, and frogs brains, too, though not as complex as ours. (None of these creatures seem to get into as much mischief as we do.)
Are cleverness and wit really what we were sent to earth to cultivate? I suspect we laid aside eons of learning gained in the presence of God (see D&C 138:56) in a perfect spirit body capable of perfect recall (see 2Ne. 9:13; Alma 11:43) when we came to earth and put on these flawed physical bodies. The veil covers that fire. It was a deliberate loss of knowledge and capacity for learning facts and figures. This life is primarily a test of other virtues; obedience, faith, humility, etc., can be displayed on godlike levels by mortals here on earth—intelligence, not as much.
As with all gifts from God, our wits are subject to use and abuse. Common sense is good for repairing flat tires and opening pickle jars, but we can trip over our knowledge, cleverness, and brains, especially when we prefer them over the Spirit or when we give them preeminence when trying to living the gospel. When someone says things about using the brains God gave us, I often read between the lines and hear a confession that revelation is a foreign process.
Is acting on faith too hard for us?
Yes, get all the education you can; yes, the glory of God is intelligence, BUT...
Walking On Water
Below is the story of Peter trying to walk on water to Jesus, who was also walking on the storm-tossed sea. Pay attention to the role that Peter’s brain plays in stifling his attempt:
“But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
“And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
“And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.
“But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.
“And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
“And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.
“But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
“And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matt 14:31).
Initially, all the disciples relied on their eyes and brains to deduce that Jesus could not be Himself. Humans cannot walk on water, so they logically assumed they must be seeing a ghost. (They feared what would save them; is there a lesson in there for us?)
Peter devises a test to determine whether it is the Lord, and bases it in part on the principle found in 1Ne. 3:7, that when God gives a commandment, He also prepares a way to accomplish it. “…bid me come unto thee…” he asks, because if the real Jesus tells Him to walk on water, the command itself will make it possible, and he will not drown. “Come,” says Jesus, and Peter leaps out of the boat.
At first, he walks on the water successfully. But Peter begins thinking logically at this point. He sees the wind blowing, and becomes afraid. It seems humorous in hindsight—walking on water is only safe in Peter’s mind when the wind is not blowing? The laws of buoyancy are temporarily suspended, so why is anything else a threat? But this is just more logic, and reason is the ballast that begins to sink him.
It is touching that the instant Peter cries for help, Jesus grabs his arm and pulls him up again. “Savior” means one who does for others that which they cannot do for themselves. Jesus seems to be in no hurry to get back into the boat. Peter’s education is more important than his safety, because Jesus begins to teach and rebuke Peter before they even get into the boat again: “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” He did not say, “God gave you a brain—logically, if one law of physics could be suspended to keep you safe, why not the rest of them?” Peter did not fail an intelligence test. He faltered in a test of his faith (and the Lord prepared Peter to try again instead of flunking him or expelling him from school).
The Lord’s Ways
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” (We should expect the unexpected.)
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The heavens completely encompass the earth, and expand outward in all directions forever—that is how the heavens are higher than the earth. The point is that we should expect to be confused at first when we encounter the Lord’s ways and instructions.
Why choose an unlearned farm boy as the head of this last dispensation? Isaiah foresees Joseph Smith’s plight: “I am not learned” (Isaiah 29:12). Maybe Moroni was feeling the same inadequacy when he told the Lord: “…thou hast made us that we could write but little, because of the awkwardness of our hands. Behold, thou hast not made us mighty in writing like unto the brother of Jared…” (Ether 12:24).
The Lord comforts Him: “…thou hast been faithful…And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father” (Ether 12:37). This pattern of the Lord picking His spokesmen from a state of their weaknesses is common. Moses had speech impediments; Enoch called himself a universally despised “lad.” Humility, not brilliance, was their leading characteristic. The audience might be impressed with the eloquence or imposing bearing of a speaker; the Lord “looketh upon the heart,” and is not impressed with outward show. What we consider unlikely, the Lord uses as standard equipment.
Arm of the Flesh
“…for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of the flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm” (2Ne. 4:34), especially those who are trying to do the Lord’s work while so relying. Human knowledge and the five senses are part of that “arm.” Peter started sinking when he tried to apply worldly, previous experience logically to an irrational event, a divine miracle. We might also find ourselves sinking in other ways if we try to accomplish the Lord’s work by obeying logic and schedules and reason when the Spirit beckons elsewhere.
One of the most temporally prepared men I ever knew recently had a heart attack. He stored many supplies and temporal goods for any external catastrophe, and yet an internal train wreck happened anyway, and caught him off guard. I saw him at the gym a few months ago; he is still active and ambulatory, for which I am glad. And there is certainly nothing wrong with his attempts to be prepared. But it is worth noting that man’s “puny arm” could not keep a blood vessel from clogging, much less divert the Missouri River. As Nephi says, we are cursed when we trust in our own abilities and knowledge; perhaps part of that curse is false confidence.
I read that one Latter-day Saint author’s mission president distributed copies of a sale’s training manual to his missionaries (this was many years ago). He had succeeded as a businessman, and he wanted his missionaries to succeed the way he had, by having them convince people through charm, logic, and manipulation. (The author said he rebelled and studied the Book of Mormon instead—so naughty.) Slick packaging sells everything else, but the gospel is not meant to be sold or bought. “…Thy money perish with thee,” Peter rebuffs Simon Magus after his offer to buy the priesthood (see Acts 8:20). “…come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness” (2Ne. 9:45).
Just as the gospel is not for sale, it is also not subject to the same rules as commodities that are for sale.
Logically, the Lord should send the very smartest people as His emissaries, but instead we read, “The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh—
“…That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers” (D&C 1:19, 23).
Being charmed or argued logically into the gospel instead of converted by personal revelations would leave us without deep roots, and we would eventually fall away. If the messenger is plain and simple, only the message itself is being accepted or rejected—the plain and simple truth can, and should, stand on its own two feet without scaffolding, save personal revelation.
Laman & Lemuel
Nephi’s older brothers, Laman and Lemuel, are the Church’s perennial whipping boys. We hiss and boo at their folly, while cheering for Nephi. “Be like Nephi; Don’t be like Laman and Lemuel,” we chant.
Laman and Lemuel ultimately did everything the Lord commanded them (they just complained a lot beforehand). They left Jerusalem; they went back for the brass plates; they went back for Ishmael’s family; they traveled in the wilderness; they helped Nephi build a ship; they sailed to the New World; they settled their families in the Americas, and populated them; all this was just like Nephi.
What was the difference then, between Laman and Lemuel, on one hand, and Nephi, on the other? Nephi acted on faith. Laman and Lemuel relied on common sense—they used their brains.
Imagine if your father came to you and told you God had warned him in a dream that people in the city wanted to murder him, and so the Lord had commanded him to take his family from a cushy situation and live in tents in the desert. Then he gets a revelation that the family is to construct a rocket ship, fly to the dark side of the moon, and establish a permanent colony there. Crazy, yes? This was Laman’s and Lemuel’s issue—what their father said did not make sense to their natural minds.
Nephi believed, not because he was smarter than they, but because “…I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto [Laman and Lemuel]” (1Ne. 2:16). Following the seemingly irrational promptings of the Spirit led Nephi to own prime real estate in the Americas, and to great revelations, as well as assisting in the creation of scripture read by millions of people thousands of years in his future. Following his older siblings’ common sense, based on five sense-information, would have led them to a few more years of ease and wealth, and then to be killed or enslaved when Jerusalem was destroyed.
It is wise to expect promptings not to make sense, at least at first; if our current understanding and trajectory are correct, then all we have to do is apply our wits to circumstances, and no course correction is needed. If there is something we cannot see coming our way, the Spirit can warn us (but usually without any explanation, and so it takes faith at first to act). After we act, we see the Lord's impressions to us fulfilled. Laman and Lemuel never reached that state of trust and action like Nephi.
Safe Handling
Are stupidity and ignorance virtues? No, but a little bit of knowledge can make its owner drunk with pride (just as any exceptional gift might inflame its owner with a sense of disdain for others). Is there a way to avoid this? Is there a spiritually safe way to be smart, sensible, and prepared?
“O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not…
“But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2Ne. 9:28-29).
“And whoso knocketh, to him will (Jesus Christ) open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them” (2Ne. 9:42). We can get to heaven without being very smart, but not without being very humble.
It is good to be as smart and educated as possible (see D&C 90:15; 88:78-81). “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom” (Prov. 3:13), says Solomon the Wise. Yet he recognizes our limits, too: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
“Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil” (Prov. 3:5-7).
The Lord usually gives revelations without explaining why we are to follow those promptings; we often need to act without seeing the whole picture at first. The scriptures will give us reasons to obey the commandments, but a prompting to go somewhere or say something usually comes without a description of the outcome. “And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1Ne. 4:6). Again, it is a test of our faith, not our knowledge.
Captain Moroni
A great example of someone who was smart, yet also followed the promptings of the Spirit, was Captain Moroni. Yes, he gave his men superior shielding in the form of armor, but he also relied on the gift of prophecy. He sent men to inquire of Alma, the current prophet, to ask where they should go to repel their enemies. On the word of the prophet, he lunged blind into the fog of war, and achieved victory even though his army was outnumbered (see Alma 43-44). He prepared according to his wits, and acted according to his faith.
It is easy to read such stories and feel that maybe we do not have to let go of the railing of carnal security and learn to use the slippery, risky ice skates of faith after all. But the Lord will throw us into the water to teach us how to swim if we insist on dragging our feet, especially if we have already made covenants with Him.
Modifying our behavior according to what is obvious to us takes little or no faith, and does not connect us to God as well as other things. Applying our minds to study, pondering, and meditation are parts of the gospel. While God expects us to use what wits He has given us, the virtues of faith and humility and love of God sometimes require us to take a leap of faith, something that does not make sense initially. Wit is more obvious; faith and humility allow us to extend our love of the Lord into trust that begets actions, even when those actions seem irrational to us at first.
As long as our trust in the Lord and His small whisperings that come to us is greater than our trust in what we can understand with our limited mortal minds, we ought to be as educated and smart as possible. Our love of the Lord is only as great as our trust in Him, and that is what we are being tested on in mortality, not our intelligence. A church full of Saints who live this way might be more miraculous than walking on water.
