Suffering Satan - D&C 10:14

"I will not suffer that Satan shall accomplish his evil design"

The story of the lost 116 pages can be read as a broader allegory for our lives. A trusted benefactor pressures us to drift from our mission and make a mistake--trusting too far. That benefactor doesn't have ill intent personally, but cares more about worldly concerns than s/he should, and doesn't take enough care with the trust. Something precious and unrecoverable is lost. We sink into a depression for a time, losing our bearings. Eventually, turning back to our main mission, working on our own sense of how to live and love in a world that has betrayed us deeply once too many times, we begin to move forward again. Soon we discover that even though we should have avoided that one pitfall, there was a long-running backup plan and getting through the recovery actually taught us a few things along the way anyway.

Every redemption story there is looks a little like that one.

The gold plates began with Lehi, not Nephi. But we know little more than that about the contents of the lost 116 pages. Some suggest that the current book of Mosiah contained chapters that covered the first king Mosiah's reign in more detail than Amaleki who passed the small plates on to his son, Benjamin. Whatever the case, we know from Section 3, given some 10 months prior, that it was gone and lost for good, and that the translation gift that resulted in the manuscript was going to be gone for a time. What strikes me is how long Smith must have languished not knowing what God knew 2400 years prior: that plan B was already assured. Around 600 BC, the Lord had inspired a second set of plates, which didn't make sense to Nephi at the time, to be commissioned and for their content to run parallel to the parts of the manuscript we were going to lose in 1828. Silly Satan, scriptures are for God.

We worship a God playing 4D chess with us mere mortals. Whatever evil design to distort your story the Devil has, God will not suffer it. You read that right! His will is to suffer ZERO evil designs. Our job isn't to defeat Satan, it's to line up with God so He can spoil the spoiler for us.