Father's Day Talk

It’s great that we have the family proclamation to help us know exactly what our roles are in the family. 

It says:  The father’s role is to preside over the family in love and righteousness;  to be responsible to responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection.

In the Book of Mormon, Lehi is a father providing for his family;  protecting them; and presiding over them.  The Lord wants to help Lehi continue to do that and he leads and teaches him line upon line with  a very interesting order of things.

The first thing we know is that the Lord has him flee Jerusalem, thus protecting his and his family’s lives.  The next chapter or 2 mention commandments several times and being obedient to them.  Rebellion to them is also discussed with the consequences laid out.  At that point Lehi is told that he needs the brass plates which contain the commandments.  So he sends his sons to get them.  He needs the laws of God that are written on those plates in order to be able to preside over his family in righteousness.

When Nephi and his brothers return with the plates, Lehi reads their geneology and lineage.  Then he begins to prophecy about his own seed.  This prepares him for God to tell him how to accomplish having any seed.  He sends his sons back again.  This time for wives.  He sees (or is shown) a need his family has and is responsible to provide that necessity of life.

Throughout all this, he is dealing with, at various times a complaining wife and murmuring sons to put it mildly.  When finally they are all together again, Lehi is thankful and they make offerings to the Lord their God.

To me,  the next thing that happens shows God’s amazing way of teaching and timing.

In 1Neph 8:1  it reads:

 1 And it came to pass that we had gathered together all manner of seeds of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds of fruit of every kind.They are going about gathering all the seeds of the things there are to eat.  They are preparing to plant trees of all kinds and  someday harvest fruit.  That’s what is going on when Lehi is given the vision of the Tree of Life.  Context is everything with God’s symbolic lessons.

To me Lehis’s vision is telling him,  “Oh, by the way, there’s one tree, one fruit that’s a little different.  That is planted and cared for and harvested in another way.  That’s my tree.  On that tree, there’s fruit of My love and it’s the best, most beautiful desirable fruit of all.”

Lehi is shown the tree.  He samples the fruit and feels the joy that comes from it.  And because he’s a father and it his job to preside over his family in love,  his very first thought is his family.

Verse 12 says:

And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit.

Lehi was a great dad.  In fact, that’s the first thing Nephi tells us about him back in Chapter 1.