The 116 Pages

The foreknowledge of God
Perhaps the most amazing principle elucidated by the lost 116 pages of manuscript translated by Joseph Smith is the the wisdom and foreknowledge of God. The record of Lehi was significant and meaningful; I believe it would be intriguing to read. Surely there was laborious, tedious, and expensive work done by Lehi to create his own narrative of his family's journeys and his spiritual encounters. With the limited space in the gold plates, Mormon must have found them very important to the story of the Nephites and to the message of Christ to include them. Yet, God knew how Satan would try to frustrate his work by trying to thwart the validity of the claimed gold plates and translation by Joseph, so he prepared a back-up record by Nephi in the small plates to preserve the story and message of the Book of Mormon. Lehi's efforts were in a way sacrificed for the greater good. Although, I believe Lehi's words made a huge impact on the righteous, scripture-using Nephites for hundreds of years during their civilization's reign. Still, an incredible amount of work, foresight, and miracles were required to preserve the reality and validity of the Book of Mormon. God truly does know us better than we know ourselves and He may even find it ironic or humorous at times when we commit to do certain things or to not follow other's mistakes because he knows already that we will break those promises. The sum conclusion again points to the necessity of Our Saviour and the Atonement as part of Heavenly Father's plan. From the very beginning even before the Creation, God the Father knew we all would need the ultimate "back-up plan", the perfect way to fix our errors and make our eternal lives a reality and ratified, saved from the grasp of Satan's tricks and plans to nullify our true identity. God's foreknowledge is a reality and something that I can trust, shown clearly with this example of the lost 116 pages of manuscript that Joseph Smith worked so hard to translate. Even when our motives may be good and our efforts sincere, the natural man comes out so easily and the persuasions of Satan sneak into our rationalizing so quickly that it becomes quite easy to blow it. Martin Harris gave in to the promptings of the devil and was able to persuade Joseph to trample upon counsel he received from his Director (D&C 3:15), fearing man more than God (D&C 3:7). The consequences were sure as Satan endeavored to capatilize on any mistake of this young prophet since the Restoration would thwart Satan's work more than anything. The awesome thing is, prayers from hundreds of years before that were full of faith, offered by righteous Nephite prophets over generations, had full sway in those events to ensure that despite Joseph's weakness the plates would come forth in power to testify to their descendents along with all Jews and Gentiles that Christ came unto them and is the Saviour of the world! D&C 3:19 "And for this very purpose are these plates preserved, which contain these records--that the promises of the Lord might be fulfilled, which he made to his people...that the Lamanites might come to the knowledge of their fathers...that they might believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in His name, and that through their repentance they might be saved. Amen."
As a final note, I have learned from the lost 116 pages that even though we sometimes feel like all is lost, there is a good chance that as we maintain faith (and repent if necessary) that all and more will be restored to us again. In D&C 5 the Lord makes the message clear to Joseph that He is in control and only as Joseph obeys His counsel can the promises of protection, translation, and receiving further witnesses be fulfilled. Still, the truth stands: God keeps His promises and they are powerful promises. The key is to be obedient and trust Him. We shouldn't be seeking for physical witnesses (seeing the pages of manuscript like Martin and his wife, or hoping to see the gold plates like Martin Harris later) as much as spiritual witnesses that are more sure and lasting in our hearts.