There are accounts in the scriptures that are maddeningly brief.  Sometimes the paucity of details leaves one to wonder what really took place, and how the event was even possible.

Consider, for example, 1 Nephi 17:4.  “And we did sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness.”  Nephi gave us one sentence—seventeen words—to describe an 8-year ordeal journeying through one of the driest, most dangerous, most inhospitable areas on earth.  We can only wonder and imagine.

Yesterday morning I sat down to continue reading in the scriptures where I’d left off the night before.  When I finished an hour later I realized that I had made it through just one verse.  It was one of those verses where one is left to wonder and imagine.

The verse was this:  “And it came to pass that the brother of Jared…went forth unto the mount…Shelem…and did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass…”  (Ether 3:1).

I spent that hour on Mount Shelem with the Brother of Jared trying to decide how to put light inside the eight vessels or boats that they’d built.  They were about to set forth on a 344-day voyage that would be spent in utter darkness unless this prophet-leader of the group could come up with a light source.

The Brother of Jared turned to the source of all light for the answer.  The Lord’s reply put the problem right back into the supplicant’s hands.  The Lord told the Brother of Jared that he couldn’t have windows or use fire, so “What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?”  (Ether 2:23).

In essence the Lord said, “I’m willing to help, but it’s up to you to decide what it is that you want me to do.”

The Brother of Jared came up with a plan.  He decided that the vessels could be lighted by shining stones, just as Noah’s ark had been lighted.  (See footnote to Genesis 6:16).  I might have thought of that same solution, but I certainly wouldn’t have gone about things as the Brother of Jared did.  He showed the Lord his faith by going through a lot of work to prepare the stones.  I would have just gone to the brook and selected the 16 prettiest quartz rocks that I could find.  Then I would have knelt in the shade of a nearby tree, and would have asked the Lord to make them shine.  If the quartz rocks had failed to shine after my prayer, I would have shrugged, and tried to come up with another plan.

Oliver Cowdery was like that.  He couldn’t understand why he was unable to translate.  The Lord told him, “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.”  (D&C 9:7).

How many times have we asked the Lord for a blessing yet failed to do the prerequisite work to bring the blessing about?

In the case of the Brother of Jared he decided that he wanted 16 stones to shine.  He knew the Lord could cause that to happen.  Therefore, these stones couldn’t be just ordinary rocks.  If the Lord was going to touch them with His finger they needed to be special.

I remember making an appointment for an interview with a man who wanted a temple recommend.  The interview was scheduled for a weekday evening.  I don’t recall how I was dressed for the interview, but I’ll never forget how he was dressed.  Nor will I ever forget him or his name because of the lesson he taught me.  He appeared in a suit and a tie, in shined shoes, and with trimmed hair.  Thinking that he had other places to go and things to do I asked him, “Tim, why are you so dressed up?”

Looking a little surprised he replied, “I’ve come to have an interview with a representative of the Lord!  I have to look my best.”

That was an expression of faith from which I learned.  I’ve never forgotten the lesson.

I know priesthood brethren who make it a point to clean up and to get dressed in their suits before responding to a request for a priesthood blessing.

That is also an expression of faith.  Whose priesthood blessings is the Lord more likely to honor—that of the man who has fasted and prayed and cleaned both his body and soul in preparation for the blessing, or the man who has neglected to keep even his inner vessel clean?

Have you ever closed your eyes and prayed to have a mountain removed from your life, only to open your eyes again and see the mountain still there?  We’ve all done that.  Then we’ve shrugged and said to ourselves, “Well, I didn’t really expect it to be gone anyway.”

Or are you like the young girl who took an umbrella to the meeting where the stake was assembling to end their collective fasts for rain?

The Brother of Jared exercised faith.  He knew the Lord was going to touch his special stones.  Therefore, he went to extraordinary lengths to prepare for the interview.  He climbed a mountain looking for just the right piece of sandstone.  He was going to melt a rock.

Have you ever considered what it would take to melt a rock?  What are you going to melt it in?  How are you going to get a fire hot enough to melt the rock without melting its container?  Where are you going to do it?  You can’t do it over an ordinary campfire.  You couldn’t get it hot enough.  How are you going to reach into that super-hot fire and remove the container that holds the molten ore?  How are you going to pour it?  What are you going to pour it into?  After you’ve molded and cooled the stones, you intend to carry them in your hands to the top of this exceedingly high mountain where you expect to have a temple-like, mountaintop experience with the Lord.  You can’t expect to accomplish all of this in one day and plan to be home for supper.  Are you going to take your bedroll?  Are you going to go fasting, or pack provisions?  Remember, your backpack is already going to be full of things with which to make a bellows so that you can have a hot fire.  This is not a simple thing that you’ve decided to do.

The Brother of Jared wasn’t the only metallurgist in the Book of Mormon to face these problems.  The Book of Mormon was begun by Nephi, but Nephi probably never heard of the Brother of Jared (who ended up being featured in it) unless he was shown the Brother of Jared in his panoramic vision of the history of the earth.

The Lord told Nephi to also go climb a mountain, and informed him that he was going to construct a ship.  Nephi’s faith-filled response was to simply ask, “Whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship…?”  (1 Nephi 17:9).

This is another example where we’re faced with a paucity of details.  We know virtually nothing about his ship or about how it was constructed.  He had trees there in the land of Bountiful, but nothing with which to cut them down.  And how was he to turn those trees into beams and planks?  He needed axes.  And how to join the planks to the beams?  He needed hammers.  He had no nails, so wooden pegs would have to do.  How was he to drill the holes into which the pegs would be pounded?  He had no brace and bit.

If the Lord commanded you to build a ship and you needed tools, would you have the presence of mind to ask the Lord where to find ore with which to build the tools?  Would you know what to do with the ore once you found it?  Would you know how to mold a hammer head?  Would you know how to securely attach a strong wooden handle?  Would you know how to make an axe head having a sharp edge?  Would you know how to sharpen it without a file?

These prophets were smarter than I am.  They also had more faith.  I’m trying to learn from their examples.  I wish we had a more complete record of how they accomplished what they did.