In the normal course of my readings from the Book of Mormon I have come again, to that passage describing Helaman’s 2060 stripling warriors. You may recall how they were blessed with a great, unmovable faith that their mothers instilled in them. (Alma 57:25-27) (Alma 56:47), and Alma 58:38-40
Every time I come to this passage I wonder / hunger for that sort of faith where so many lives (of righteousness) were preserved… over and over again. Elements that may have contributed to their miraculous preservation would include that personal faith so taught by righteous examples. (Being a man I want to believe that their fathers’ personal examples and prayers would have also been of influence in their preservation, but is quite evident that their mom’s, who taught them from a very early age, were their primary influence for righteousness and preservation). How does one get / retain that sort of faith??
I believe such faith is available to me, to us all, but we live in a time when distractions from such ideals are so numerous, persistent, without end that every day patterns of such righteousness seem impossible. Then I remember too, I have a loving God our Heavenly Father and His Son, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ who all knowing, knows how I can overcome ANYTHING when I put my trust in them and take change a little at a time, “line upon line, precept upon precious precept, here a little there a little”(2 Nephi 28:30) My own history shows clarity that the change I hunger for is not in an instant, suddenly. There are scriptural exceptions (Saul, who became Paul an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, the two Alma’s in the Book of Mormon… every bit as equal in faith and service to the Lord, also so called – such were the very worst of sinners!… before the Lord intervened), but it is apparent that such miraculous change, instantly, is not for me… Should I consider my exception a gift, because it keeps me calling upon God in a personable feeling of surrender…knowing He always listens and my persistence will, in time, yield that change… for Him and to His purposes?
For me a huge part of that discipline I seek becomes trust in the Lord’s time frame. It is that personal, persistent interaction with him under my ‘raw mortal-ness’ and (often lack of) understanding that make my weaknesses become tools, tools with which he can motivate the change I seek while building a better me according to His pattern (not my own). kdm
