What is Your Ninevah?

SCRIPTURE:  “Despise not the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”

–Hebrews 12:6

“Remember to Study Your Patriarchal Blessing with a Prayer”

            In our patriarchal blessings we find subtle warnings and admonitions that will teach us if we identify them through inspiration. These are often hidden among the blessings as a phrase. Quite often the word admonition or Beware is found. Not always is the subject of that warning apparent.

            Sometimes these  warnings come in a conditional phrase form using If…then. For example: “If you are faithful…you will…” and so on.

            In other cases, the IF and THEN are implied, for example: “(implied IF you will) Be mindful of your parents (implied then) you shall be successful in seeking out the knowledge of your forefathers.”

            Sometimes these subtle warnings are referred to as admonitions with a promise. However, these difficult to find sentences can be yielded up to your understanding if you search diligently and study your personal scripture. If you do this, then you will have life changing insight about God’s plan for your life. ( notice that conditional phrase?)

            At one point in my life, I pondered if Heavenly Father would admonish me about something he knew would never be a problem for me. This would be like an earthly parent that knew one child was fearful of fire at an early age and a sibling was absolutely fascinated by the flame. Which child is the parent going to admonish by saying, “Be careful, don’t touch, or you will get burned?”

            Here are some examples of admonitions with promises: 

Admonition “through persistence and effort…”

Promise“you will be successful in your studies and will obtain the knowledge necessary to have a successful career.”
Admonition “honor your priesthood, study the scriptures and develop the skills God has given you…” “ be active in civic affairs,” “be prompt and dependable,” “come to know Jesus Christ.”

Promise “and you will receive many opportunities to lead, both inside and outside of the Church.”

MY QUESTION FOR YOU: So what if you are shy and can’t possibly even imagine being active in civic affairs? What then?

            We are very lucky to have our personal scripture from the Lord. But sometimes we just ignore some of those phrases in our patriarchal blessing. If you have such a phrase, that may be your Nineveh.

MY SUGGESTION: Find your admonitions with a promise or warnings from the Lord remembering that they may be subtle or implied.

THOUGHT: The story of Jonah can be very valuable in providing insight in recognizing our own weaknesses, deficiencies, areas where we remain disobedient or even parts of our lives where we simply neglect an important matter that the Lord feels we should do.

            Jonah was a prophet of the Lord. The Lord asked Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach repentance unto the people there. What did Jonah do? He tried to “flee from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa;” –Jonah 1:3 where he got on a ship to Tarshish. The results were pretty dramatic. His fellow shipmates knew that he was a prophet and had fled from his responsibility or revelation from God because he had told them. When the dangerous winds came up, they knew he was the reason even though they were heathens. Jonah told them to throw him overboard, but they didn’t want to do it because they recognized the greatness in him and his calling. But finally they did what he asked of them, and threw him overboard. The sea immediately calmed.

            Jonah would rather die that go to Nineveh! But the Lord prepared a safety net for Jonah, a whale (large fish.) After three days and three nights (sound familiar) he called upon the Lord and repented. His thoughts looked toward the holy temple where he had received an answer to prayer and said, “They that observe lying vanities, forsake their own mercy.” –Jonah 2:8 He simply was not being honest with himself or the Lord. The  whale vomited him up and he finally went to Nineveh.

            This isn’t the end of the story, so you should read all of Jonah and apply it to yourselves and your own actions or inactions as the case may be. Hugh Nibley once wrote, “The book of Isaiah is a tract for our own times; our very aversion to it testifies to its relevance.”[1]

            Aren’t we funny? We don’t want to face up to something so we have this aversion to it, even though it is for our own good and perhaps even our own sanctification. I remember think that Jacob 5 was confusing and boring and repetitive. When I became aware of the fact that I was ignoring it and just reading it over quickly, I repented. One family home evening, we enacted this chapter as a family. It changed my perspective immediately. Understanding this chapter has opened up revelations in other scriptures AND has shown me my place in the latter-day scheme of things.

            So, the Lord can take our aversion or weakness and turn it right around and it can be come a strength to us. Guess you’ll just have to go by faith and tackle your Nineveh, once it is found. It could be as simple as pride. . . knowing that you’ve done everything that the Lord has required of you. Hmmmm Is that really ever true? Have we kept the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law, and sat back looking smug?

            We must ask ourselves why Jonah ran from the Lord’s command and why he was prepared to die rather than actually do what the Lord requested, and was ready to die again after he’d done it because he didn’t think the Lord should have saved Nineveh even though he knew the Lord promised he would. You’ll find stubborn Jonah wanting to die three times rather than “face” himself and his weaknesses.

QUOTE:

“If we are open to it, needed correction will come in many forms and from many sources.”

“Chastening may come as we study the scriptures and are reminded of deficiencies, disobedience or simply matters neglected.”

“Eventually, much of our chastening should come from within—we should become self-correcting.” –Ensign May 2011, “As Many as I Love, I Rebuke and Chasten,” Elder D. Todd Christofferson, pages 99, 100.

            My thoughts are that the study of Isaiah and finding that the Lord wants you to be a Savior on Mt. Zion are two of the most neglected and procrastinated commands that the Lord has given us in these Latter-days. I think we ignore these at the peril of our own salvation.

The Lord is ever quick to throw us a safety net. We might not have to spend three days and three nights in the belly of a whale, but we can indeed expect that we will have to spend some time to overcome our aversion to those admonitions that appear in our inspired patriarchal blessings. It may very well be, that this is the very thing we are expected to overcome in this mortal probation.

            I pray that we may be self-correcting and rely on the Lord and his mercy.

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[1] “The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley: Volume1 “Old Testament and Related Studies” Hugh Nibley, 1986, Deseret Book (Salt Lake City, UT) and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (Provo, UT) Chapter 8 Great are the Words of Isaiah, page 215