Alma 6-7

(March 19, 2014)
Lately I have been reading the words of the scriptures less as where the words are the important part and more towards where the concepts are the important part.  What I mean is that I am less engaged in proof-texting and more in trying to understand what is actually being taught.  I believe I mentioned before that words like all and never caught my attention, because their absolute nature led me to think in absolute terms.  I think that my lawyering nature led me to that conclusion, and I am reconsidering whether it was correct.

But despite avoiding that approach lately, I was drawn to the language of this chapter that we should pray and ask for all things that we need.  There seems to be little limit on that statement.  I thought about it, and realized how very much that I needed that I wasn’t getting in my life, and how I was counting on myself to get it.  That led me to thinking about my pride, and why we have to be humble to ask what we need.  We all want to be self-sufficient – we all want to be able to say that we are able to meet the needs that we have.  To rely on anyone (even the Lord) requires us to humble ourselves greatly.  But there is nothing that we need that we should not be asking the Lord for.