13 And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led.
The Lord wants it understood very clearly that the success of
this journey to the Promised Land depends on Him. The Lehites didn’t need fire,
a fundamental part of traveling or camping, because the Lord would provide
nourishment, light, and direction, everything they needed if they would just
keep His commandments. The comparison to our own spiritual journey to our own
land of promise (exaltation) is both clear and irresistible. As we keep the
commandments the Lord provides our spiritual nourishment. The Lord taught the
children of Israel after their 40 years in the wilderness (and was quoted by
Jesus Christ in Matthew 4:4) that the reason he fed them with manna was “that
he might make [them] know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deuteronomy
8:3). So the scriptures provide spiritual nourishment to those who “feast upon
the words of Christ” (2 Nephi 32:3). Those who ignore scripture, or the words
of Christ, do not get the spiritual nourishment they need to flourish, and
spiritually they wither on the vine. This is a major contributor to them
falling away from their testimonies and covenants that would have brought them
to their Promised Land.
Just as the Lehites depended on the Lord to provide light in
their wilderness that would normally come from fire, He provides spiritual
light, enlightenment, or revelation to guide us so we don’t have to rely on the
philosophies of men to guide us through our wilderness. We need this light for
discernment every bit as much as Lehi’s company needed it to help them see in
their wilderness. For us the light of Christ “is given to every man, that he
may know good from evil” (Moroni 7:16). In fact, by the power of the Holy
Ghost, which is given as a gift to those who make a covenant with God, we may
know the truth of all things. Now that is light.
Finally, if we keep His
commandments, we will be following the Lord, and He will lead us, step by step
through our spiritual wilderness to our Promised Land. But it has to be His
way, or we won’t make it. We need to depend on the Lord for spiritual
nourishment, light, and direction, or we will not return to our Heavenly
Father. This is, I believe, what the Lord is teaching Lehi and his family, and
us, in these verses.
