Your Promised Land
A significant theme in the scriptures is the idea of a promised land. Abraham made a covenant with God, including a place where his posterity could dwell. Lehi and his family left Jerusalem and were led to a land that was chosen for them. We are taught that America is a land of promise and opportunity. It is clear that God has his hand in specific places on his earth for his chosen people or people who choose Him.
Throughout history and into the present day, these places are coveted by nations who claim them as their own and continue to battle for them. I suppose America would also be a place of perpetual conflict if it weren’t for its superpower status. Other nations contain vast resources that make them targets of conquest, but not in the same way as those claimed by religious cultures.
We learn in the Book of Mormon that God preserved this land for those who were forced to flee their homelands for religious freedom. It is also clear that those who possess this land must continue to worship the God of this land, Jesus Christ. The promise on the land is conditional and not guaranteed.
A promised land is not somewhere where peace prevails. That idea is clearly illustrated in the Middle East. The many war chapters in the Book of Mormon testify that when wickedness prevails, conflict always follows. When people possess a land of promise, their trials and troubles do not go away. You could argue that a so-called promised land is no different than any other place on earth.
Peace must prevail for prosperity to follow. Those who maintain and practice ethical and moral standards are the most peaceful places on earth. Ethics and morality do not spring up out of nowhere. They are not a result of evolutionary cooperation or come because human beings are inherently good, as secular humanists and scientists argue. The fact that ordinary people cooperate at all is because they know that if they don’t, they will die. However, when a person becomes extraordinary and gains a measure of status or power they fall back on their true nature and seek to control others and glut themselves on the labors of others. That is true human nature.
So, the world is a place to struggle. Finding peace and having access to the promises of God leads us to our personal promised lands. However, obtaining a promised land is only part of the battle. Maintaining it is the real challenge. We all tend to become complacent and stagnant when things are going well. Things change and decay over time, and our worldly foundations crack and must be shored up by returning to what brought us to our places of promise.
When we read about ancient Israel of Lehi reaching the promised land, we breathe a sigh of relief for them. The suffering they endured before coming to these places stretched them to their absolute limits, so when they reached their destination, they rejoiced and gave thanks. But the rejoicing was short-lived. Their challenges shifted from mere survival and necessary cooperation to dealing with their selfish desires for more. Again, that is human nature.
Neither peace nor stability are found in the world, but that is where we must live. Our lives can be changed in an instant by economic or natural disasters. Our world can be turned upside down when our unrepentant past catches up with us, or some malevolent action of another broadsides us. We cannot afford to place all of our confidence in a government to protect and care for us. We must pay attention. We can’t afford to be ignorant of social changes that undermine the purposes of God’s plan. Thinking that everything is going okay in the land of promise because of an election is possibly the most naive thing we can do.
Simply believing in God or Jesus did not save Israel or the Nephites from their enemies, but living the spirit of the law and humbly doing the works required by God who gave them did. As I wrote last week, our works prepare us to receive both the spiritual and temporal salvation offered by the atonement of Christ. That is the promise part of the phrase “promised land’.
We cannot escape our responsibilities to care for ourselves and our loved ones. We must get good at recognizing when the world changes around us so that we can adapt. We must rely on God’s promises as we covenant with him to keep his commandments. When we do those things, the Spirit of God can guide us as surely as the pillar of fire in the wilderness or the Liahona in the desert to our promised land.
As I have laid out a case that a promised land is what we all desire, I have mentioned two concepts that apply to making wherever we are such a place: a sense of peace and having a sure foundation at our feet. The Lord Jesus Christ offers us both of these. We must build upon the Rock of our Redeemer and tap into the peace he gives us through his teaching and example. As we strive to be like him, we dwell in a place of promise.