Mosiah 29

(September 12, 2015)

                ‘What if?’ questions are some of the hardest to deal with as we read the scriptures – and this chapter has a doozy.  What if Aaron had taken the kingdom from his father?  Did the Amalekites (assuming that they are Amalecites) arise from the power vacuum that came from the sons of Mosiah abdicating?  If so, would a good portion of the wars and infighting have been averted (no Amalecites, no king men, etc.)?  I think that a convincing argument can be made for this.

                I think that we need to be careful that, even when we are trying to do the right thing that we also do the best thing (meaning the thing that the Lord wants us to do).  I am not saying that Aaron didn’t here – he very well might have, and I don’t know enough to say that he didn’t – but let’s presume that he made the wrong choice.  How many people suffered because his desire to do good was not tempered by the understanding of his duty and the perspective that only the Lord has?

                Could Aaron have taken the throne, and we would be reading of the missionary exploits of Ammon and his two other brothers?  Would it have made that big of a different?  Who knows (I certainly don’t).  The lesson to me, though, is that we can never have enough information to make proper decisions and we cannot merely be content to make decisions with good (or even the best) motivations.  The only real hope we have is making decisions based upon revelation from the Lord.