Alma 22

(April 3, 2015)

                I think I might be repeating myself, but I have always been struck by the language of King Lamoni here about rooting the wicked spirit out of his breast.  I have, from time to time, fought with warts, and that is what my thoughts always come back to when I read this plea.  Warts are something that you can cut out, freeze off, burn off, electrocute, take acid to, or just about anything else and they still end up staring you in the face.

                You see, you can pull out, destroy, or cut away the visible issue but what you don’t address is the virus that is at the heart of the wart.  Likewise, we can fight our habits, our sins, our behaviors, and so forth but ultimately the same problems tend to recur because we aren’t dealing with the true issue – our rebellious heart.

                Just as our blood must fight the virus for our warts to finally go away, His blood must fight our nature for our sins to go away.  We cannot win this battle on our own, because we end up playing spiritual “Whack-a-Mole” – knocking down one vice only to have another rear its ugly head.  Now this is a good fight to have, and we must keep fighting our sins and weaknesses in order to get the Lord’s help, but these fights aren’t what win the battle.  We fight, but it is the Lord that grants us victory.  Only He can root out the wicked spirit from our breasts and make us whole once more.