Alma 57

(October 31, 2014)

                None of us are righteous – as Paul has said, if we fall in one commandment we are guilty of violating all of the commandments.  But, by that same token, if we are striving and increasing our diligence and love for the Lord through an ever-increasing level of obedience (not for obedience sake, but our of a desire to submit our wills fully to the Lord), we find that we have great power to affect positive change in the world.

                So the Stripling Warriors demonstrated exact obedience on the battlefield (and, perhaps, in the commandments).  So too, if we are strictly obedient in the battlefield of the War in Heaven, can we reach the point where the Lord trusts us in the way that Helaman trusted the Stripling Warriors.  The irony of that, of course, is that as the Lord trusts us more He will find greater and greater use for us (often in ways both painful and frightening for us).  But the great blessing of that is that, despite how painful or frightening it may be the Lord will bring us through it.  We will be stronger, freer, and – most importantly – we will find ourselves useful in some small way to the Lord.