Ether 2: In regards to obtaining light in the barges for the Jaredites....Harold B. Lee said: “Then the Lord went away and left him alone. It was as though the Lord were saying to him, ‘Look, I gave you a mind to think with, and I gave you agency to use it. Now you do all you can to help yourself with this problem; and then, after you've done all you can, I'll step in to help you.’ This is the principle in action:
- If you want the blessing, don't just kneel down and pray about it.
- Prepare yourselves in every conceivable way you can in order to make yourselves worthy to receive the lessing you seek.
- When we are situated that we cannot get anything to help ourselves, then we may call upon the Lord and His servants who can do all. But it is our duty to do what we can within our own power.
That is a tremendous principle. In order to teach young people how to approach the Lord and how to prepare to receive what the Lord has promised for those who are faithful, we must teach them these fundamental steps.
After Moroni had read this great experience of the brother of Jared, he added: ‘. . . wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.’ (Ether 12:6.)” (Stand Ye in Holy Places, p. 243-5) What is doctrinally significant about these verses is not so much the content of the Lord's instructions concerning the shape of the barges, the means whereby oxygen was made available, or the lighting of the interior, but rather the process whereby the brother of Jared came to acquire this important information. "What will ye that I should do ... ?" was the Lord's response to the brother of Jared's prayerful petitions that outlined the group's predicament and their special needs. Implicit in the Lord's question is the Lord's expectation-he expects Moriancumer, and expects each of us as well, to use his intellect and his common sense as he seeks solutions to his problems. Oliver Cowdery learned this lesson the hard way, when the Lord told him that he could not translate because he had erroneously assumed that He would grant him his desires merely for the asking. "Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought, save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right." (D&C 9:7-8)
It may be that we approach our prayers the way Oliver did. It may be that all too often when we are praying about our problems and our own unique needs the Father may be saying to us: "What will ye that I should do?" We may be forfeiting greater personal revelation and inspired instructions from the Lord because, expecting the Lord to do all the work, we give no serious study or thought to the solutions but merely ask. Receiving revelation is often a strenuous endeavor that requires intellectual effort coupled with faith and spiritual yearning. DCBM, 4:271-72.)
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