Everything I Know Is Wrong — Vol 2

Good news, we’re still alive. The storm has passed. And I guess God put me back in my place...again. Here’s the full story.

So two posts ago, I mentioned I was going to see if we could have some fun on the boat. Ahijah, true to expectation, taught us some good songs. We broke out the wine and we started to dance. It was the best time we’d had in weeks. Nephi, however, saw people having fun and decided God doesn’t like fun, and so we’d better stop it. I get that we need to obey God, but we need balance in our lives. People need time to unwind, and I don’t think Nephi gets that.

Anyway, he ripped into us for singing, dancing, and a few of Ahijah’s slightly off-color jokes. And normally I’m used to that, and can deal with it. And normally, none of us ever have more than a moderate amount of wine at a time. But we did get a bit to free with the wine, and Nephi’s self-righteousness came off as extra abrasive, so Laman and I told him off and tied him up on the ship so he’d leave us alone. We basically put him in a time out. Once he cooled off, we planned to let him go.

Nephi had been doing a lot of the steering up to that point (shocker, I know), so with him tied up, Laman went to take a turn. We thought the director was jammed or something, or that we might’ve broken it in the tussle with Nephi, so Laman had no idea where we were going. I tried to unjam it, or see if I could fix it, but no luck.

We went back to check on Nephi and tell him we’re in trouble because the director must’ve been broken when we tied him up, and asked him if he had the tools he needed to fix it. Rather than be a team player, he just lit into us again and said the director stopped working because of our wickedness. At that point we decided he hadn’t cooled off enough to come out of time out.

Because we didn’t know where we were going, the next day we ended up steering ourselves into a giant storm. Everyone was telling us we needed to let Nephi go, and the storm came because we tied him up. My thinking was correlation doesn’t equal causation. God himself seems to enjoy a bit of wine (story here), and so even though Nephi and Dad have been on God’s side on a number of issues over the last eight or nine years, there’s no way he’s right about this one, and he needs to get off his high horse. I felt like he was trying to rule over the entirety of the family now, and we needed to put him in his place. Not that he’s below us, but just that he’s not over us either.

Anyway, storm kept getting worse, and everyone kept saying we needed to untie Nephi. After four days of that storm going, it got so bad, we knew it was over. The ship didn’t seem like it could take too much more of this, and the waves were getting crazy enough that capsizing seemed inevitable. Everyone was begging for us to untie Nephi. I kept thinking there’s no way that’s connected to this storm, but we figured we’d give it a shot. Also, if the ship capsized, we didn’t want him to be tied to it. If there’s anywhere close to swim to, that at least would give him a chance at survival.

So we untied him, and looking at him, he was in rough shape. I felt pretty bad. His wrists were pretty swollen because not only was he tied, but also the rocking of the boat probably threw him against the restraints quite a bit. He was honestly classier than I expected. He didn’t rail on us, instead he just went and grabbed the director, and kneeled down and prayed. And…well, the storm stopped.

I snapped this picture within a minute after Nephi finished praying. Bizarre.

Guys, I don’t know what to say at this point. It just feels like God is trying to showcase that He’s picked Nephi to be His favorite, and to rub that in every chance possible. Nephi was all worried that our partying was going to upset God, and it didn’t. There was no storm because of us having some fun. He was wrong. We tried to get him to chill out by putting him in timeout, and that’s when God decided to show His displeasure.

What am I missing here?! I didn’t think God was like this. Since when does He pick favorites who He supports regardless of how right or wrong they are? I never understood Job before. He made God seem too arbitrary. It didn’t match with the understanding of God that our prophets taught back home. But now I think I get it. He saves whoever He wants, and He condemns whoever He wants. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And I guess I’m just on the loosing end of His arbitrary nature. But I don’t want to be on the bad end. I’d like to be favored of God.

I’ve been trying.

I guess…I guess I might as well give up at this point. It’s clear He doesn’t want me.