Mosiah 21

(September 6, 2014)

                Our temporal understanding of things is so often skewed and backwards.  Reading the story of the people of Limhi going to battle against the Lamanites, we see an oppressed people struggling for their freedom unsuccessfully.  We read of the sorrows of the widow and the orphan, and the suffering of the people under bondage and abuse.

                When we read this story, our first thought is to wonder why the Lord would allow the Lamanites to prosper in their evil.  But a closer reading reveals that the Lamanites are not prospering at all.  They may be abusing and afflicting the people of Limhi, but in the end it is the people of Limhi who are brought to repentance.  When the people of Limhi flee, the Lamanites are stuck in the same position that they were in before – without knowledge of God.

                When we read this story, do we have the testimony to think to ourselves that we would rather be in the position of the people of Limhi than to be in the position of the Lamanites?  Do we recognize that the abuse inflicted on the people of Limhi by the Lamanites was ultimately a blessing to them, as it caused them to “humble themselves even to the dust” and to “cry mightily to God.”  There were undoubtedly those among the people of Limhi who would have been lost but for the abuse of the Lamanites, which turned the people of Limhi to God.

                The tragedy of this story is the Lamanites – those who died in the battles unprepared to meet God, and those that survived and lived without the Atonement in their lives.  It is hard to recognize that, and it is hard for me to internalize it.  But, at the same time, it is unquestionably true.