Cover image via Gospel Media Library.
Because it had two spindles, it’s tempting to imagine the Liahona functioned like an old-fashioned watch. Like an hour hand and a second hand which, one pointed the direction generally, and the other specifically. It’s possible The Liahona didn’t work for Laman and Lemuel because they never learned how to “tell time.”
In contrast, even though the Liahona had two spindles it probably functioned more like a compass. One of the spindles always pointed the way Nephi and his family should travel. The second spindle, in my mind, could represent how close the travelers were to going in the correct direction. Their job was to align the second spindle with the first, in other words to align their direction, with the direction the Lord was pointing.
The Liahona worked, not because Nephi knew how to “set the time.” The Liahona worked because Nephi had the faith to follow the fixed spindle. Alma taught that the “words of Christ” were like the Liahona (Alma 37:45). We simply follow the set spindle to arrive at a “far greater land of promise.” In this day and age the Liahona may cease to function in our lives. One of the following three reasons usually explains why.
Thinking the Liahona is Broken
The Liahonas in our lives may cease to work because we think they are broken. We think it’s the device that is at fault. Years ago, I was in the locker room in the Salt Lake City temple changing into my temple clothes. When I tried to shut my locker, it wouldn’t close. I pushed it and wiggled it and eventually banged a bit too hard, trying to get the locker to close. I am embarrassed to admit, I thought the locker was broken. I thought the temple was simply too told, and was falling apart, and nobody had attended to this defective locker. Frustrated, I took a deep breath, studied the situation, and discovered that a tiny corner of my clothing was stuck in the door of the locker. It wouldn’t close because there was an obstruction in the way!
In our own lives we might blame our lack of direction on a broken Liahona. Our Liahona is words of prophets, modern day and ancient. We receive the “words of Christ” from these sources. There are many ways people assume our Liahona is “broken.” They may claim the prophet is too old to receive revelation, or that the members of the Quorum of Twelve apostles are too old-fashioned to relate to what is happening in this day-and-age, or that the counsel of previous prophets doesn’t apply to us today, or that because the prophet hasn’t reiterated what a previous prophet taught, then it doesn’t apply. Only when we sit back, take a deep breath, and re-assess the situation can we recognize that the Liahona is not broken, but there is an obstruction in the way. The obstruction may be blocking our view, or clouding our mind, and it is keeping us from a “far greater land of promise.”
When We Don’t Believe What We See
There are other times that we may be looking right at the Liahona, the spindles plainly in sight and we don’t trust them. We may look around at the world and see an easier path, a path with more sunshine, fewer obstacles, more resources, such as water and fruit trees along the way. The Liahona, however, is pointing to a dense forest, perhaps where trees need to be felled, paths trodden, and beasts slain. We question the direction of the Liahona refusing to believe, and we choose our own path. For the Liahona to work, we must believe that the spindles really do point the correct way (Alma 37:40).
I took two years of Spanish in high school and abruptly stopped learning when I was introduced to irregular verbs. Senorita Ohm taught us that the word for “I give” as in I give to charity, was “doy.” As a know-it-all-teen, I literally laughed out loud when she taught us to say “doy.” In that day “doy” was a word we English-speaking teenagers used all the time to mean duh or obviously or how could you be so naïve? I didn’t believe that a word whose meaning was so insulting, could possibly be a legitimate word in another language. I thought Senorita Ohm was daft, too old, probably had dementia. She must not know what she was talking about. I doubted the messenger and thus doubted her teachings.
We make a similar mistake when we question the prophets or the words of the scriptures. The words in the scriptures may not coincide with what we have traditionally believed or practiced, and we dismiss them. We cling to our adolescent way of thinking, refusing to open our minds to a new concept. We doubt the messenger, rather than doubting our own prejudices. The humility to recognize that we may not know everything, and those with more experience, wisdom, and inspiration than we have are guiding the way, will enable the Liahona to function once again in our lives.
Refusing to Look
While sailing to the promised land Laman and Lemuel tied Nephi up and Nephi tells us that the compass ceased to work. The ship then lost direction and headed straight into a perilous storm (1 Nephi 18:12). Could it be that the compass (the Liahona) ceased to work because Laman and Lemuel refused to look at the compass? When Nephi was finally free he “took the compass and it did work” (1 Nephi 18:21). Again, I don’t think Nephi was “setting the clock.” I think he was following the compass. A compass doesn’t do any good if nobody follows its direction.
Today people may refuse to look at the compass for many reasons. They stop coming to church where they will hear the “words of Christ” because they know what they will hear, and they don’t want to hear it. They stop reading their scriptures where they will read the “words of Christ” because they don’t like what they are reading. If someone doesn’t want to heed the words of Christ, it will prick their conscience, and they don’t like that constant “pricking.” They can either heed the words of Christ, so their conscience no longer bothers them, or “put their fingers in their ears” and do everything possible to ignore the words of Christ.
Alma speculates that another reason people don’t look at the Liahona is because they are “slothful” (Alma 37:41). Slothful is not the same as being deliberately wicked. Slothful is simply being lazy. In either case, the result is a loss of direction. Whether a person refuses to look at the Liahona (read the scriptures, listen to the words of the prophets) because he doesn’t want his conscience pricked, or because his simply lazy, the result is the same: he will be lost.
We learn that the Liahona worked for Nephi’s people “according to their faith in God” (Alma 37:40). This doesn’t mean that they waved their hands over the Liahona, like a fortune teller, murmuring secret words, expecting energy to pass from their hands to the ball, forcing the spindles to turn. The Liahona worked when they had the faith to look at it. Like Moses with a serpent on a stick, their first task was to look! In other words, go to church, listen to General Conference, read the scriptures, look at the director! Their second task was to follow. They couldn’t second-guess the director, thinking it was broken, or out of touch, or only applied in the wilderness, but not on the water. They had to have the faith to follow.
My grandchildren recently asked my husband and I to tell them about the most difficult part of our mission. I told them truthfully that whole mission was difficult. Everything, from motivating the missionaries to be obedient, to motivating the members to participate in the work– it was all difficult. It was like climbing a steep mountain. We had to be in shape, it took effort to put one foot ahead of the other, to ascend. Sometimes we had to grab onto protruding rocks to help heft us over obstacles. However, the Liahona showed us the path. We were able to reach our goals because the Lord knew the route. If we had tried to forge our own path, we might have become entangled in dense forest and become completely lost. The Liahona guided us and although we had to keep moving, we knew we were moving in the right direction and would arrive at our destination.
Bret and JeaNette Smith served as mission leaders in the Dominican Republic from 2017-2020. JeaNette is the author of several books on family relationships that can be found on her website, www.smithfamilytherapy.org.
