Mount Nebo

Mount Nebo
By Jenny Komenda


“Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land... And the Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants.” I have allowed you see it with your own eyes, but you will not enter the land.’”
Deuteronomy 34:1, 4
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At the end of his long journey, Moses stood atop Mount Nebo. After leading Israel out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea, receiving the law, and enduring forty years in the wilderness, he was finally permitted to view the Promised Land. But he was not permitted to enter it. To some, this outcome might seem tragic, given all that Moses had done and sacrificed. But we might consider this instead as a tender mercy that God allowed him to glimpse the fulfillment of a promise. Even if he wouldn’t get the opportunity to fully realize it himself, he could have a sure hope that his loved ones and future generations would. Moses’s experience echoed Paul’s description of those who “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).

In our own lives, we sometimes labor in faith without seeing the full fruit of our efforts. We raise children, build communities, serve missions, write books, teach classes, and offer prayers whose answers may bloom long after we are gone. As Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Patient endurance is not only acceptance of the things allotted to us, it is to ‘act for ourselves’ by magnifying what is allotted to us.” Our faith is based in trust, not transactional rewards. We act in trust, not transaction. As a result, as Rick Warren explained, “You may never see the harvest here on earth. But you can be sure your faithfulness will have an impact for generations to come and for eternity.”

Joseph Smith counseled to “cheerfully do all things that lie in your power; and then stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the arm of God revealed.” God’s promises are real, even if their arrival sometimes feels distant. Like Moses, we are sustained by glimpses—of what could be, of what will be, of what God has prepared for those who love Him. It is no failure to plant seeds whose blossoms we may not have the opportunity to see in full bloom. Instead, it is recognition that we are in the hands of a God who alone sees things through without fail from beginning to end. As such, we would all do well to remember these works from author Robert Louis Stevenson: “Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

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