By believing in such a disabled God, people can do pretty much as they please. Laman and Lemuel did not realize either that a loving God will inevitably be a tutoring Father, who wants His children to be truly happy and to come home. Thus their murmuring was a symptom of a pathetic pathology. The Lord had so called Lehi, but Laman and Lemuel were apparently embarrassed by their father s unpopular role and by his stern challenge to Jerusalem s then prevailing mentality. A parallel and trampling decline is being missed by so many today, too.
Advice is seen as an insult, and counsel as a contraction of their agency.
Fundamental, too, was Laman and Lemuel s not understanding that a tutoring God may require difficult things of His children. To partake of the love of God is to partake of Jesus Atonement and the emancipations and joys which it can bring. If we have a love of God and know His goodness, we will trust Him, even when we are puzzled or perplexed. Thus Laman and Lemuel did not understand the relationship of mortals with God, and, worse still, they did not really want to understand. They sought to keep their distance from God.