Mosiah 27

(September 10, 2014)

                I cannot speak for everyone, but in my life I have made some pretty tragic mistakes – mistakes that hurt a great number of people.  That, I suppose, is why I always empathized with Corianton so much in the Book of Mormon – he has made these mistakes, repents, and quietly goes about doing the best he can without fanfare or acclaim.  Many people see in him a story of failure, while I see in him a story of redemption and success – he made his tragic mistakes, but he repented and corrected his behavior.

                The two Almas are much the same – they made their own set of tragic mistakes.  One of the hardest parts to deal about having made these mistakes is trying to make things right – trying to make restitution for the wrongs that I have committed.  It is especially difficult when the people that I have wronged don’t want restitution or have become sufficiently hostile that any efforts I make to repent only make the situation worse.  I thought of this as I read through this chapter, seeing Alma and the sons of Mosiah struggling to make restitution for the serious sins which they had committed.

                What struck me was that, although they were successful in the Church at large (i.e., people who did not listen to them before and who they really didn’t harm), those that they had harmed and led out of the Church were largely unaffected by their attempts to perform restitution – they were hostile to Alma just as they were hostile to any other believer.

                Alma, though, was still able to make fully effective (presumably – I am no judge) his repentance through working with the Lord and through zealously striving to repair the damage that he had caused.  That language is telling to me – Alma was not charged to repair the damage, as he could not repair it (especially since those damaged had no desire to have the damage repaired).  He was obligated to zealously strive to repair the damage, and then leave the matter in the hands of the Lord.  That is something that I can do as well – even if I cannot repair the damage my mistakes have caused I can do what I can with zeal and then wait upon the Lord to handle everything.