It seems highly unlikely that a man of the spiritual stature of the brother of Jared-one who had received marvelous manifestations and had previously exercised great faith in the Lord-would suddenly cease praying to his Maker. It may be that what this verse is saying to us is that Mahonri Moriancumer was chastened by the Lord because he bad not fully followed and implemented the counsels of the Lord previously received.
It may be that in the relative comfort of the seashore he had allowed his prayers to become less fervent, more casual and routine. He may have been calling upon the Lord in word, but not in faith and deed. Verse 13 perhaps suggests this: they “dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years.” The Lord had taught them and prepared them, but it appears that they had tarried too long, for which the brother of Jared was chastened. (Compare Alma 37:42.)
“Chastened Him Because He Remembered Not to Call Upon the Name of the Lord”
2) From the Lord’s chastening the brother of Jared we see also the danger of pausing too long in one place when we need to be moving onward, forward, and upward. Perhaps it was fear of the long ocean journey, complacency created by the comforts of the seashore, or the natural tendency to want to be “commanded in all things” that caused them to delay their journey.
Whatever the reason, the Lord desired them, as he desires us, to “press forward.” Perhaps the Lord was chastening the brother of Jared in much the same way as President Spencer W Kimball chastened and prodded the Church. “We have paused on some plateaus long enough,” he declared. “Let us resume our journey forward and upward. Let us quietly put an end to our reluctance to reach out to others-whether in our own families, wards, or neighborhoods. We have been diverted, at times, from fundamentals on which we must now focus in order to move forward as a person or as a people.” (CR, April 1979, p. 114.)