Thanks and Giving

Once again, I find myself writing about Thanksgiving after the holiday has already passed. Last time, I did so on purpose, to prove a point. Not so this year; I intended to get this post done before the holiday, but things got busy and so I find myself typing this up the weekend after. If I may say so, though, I think it's still just as relevant now as it would have been then.

Earlier this month, I was reading a commencement address by David McCullough entitled "You Are Not Special" (which you can read for yourself here). The address contained a lot of sound advice, but one line stood out to me in particular. It wasn't by any means the most important point of the speech; it came in the middle of a paragraph, one element of a list of similar sentiments. Still, it struck a chord:

Be Worthy of Your Advantages

It stood out to me, but what exactly does it mean? I wasn't sure at first, but I think I have an idea now:

Let's go to the Book of Mormon, to Mosiah chapter 4. Here, King Benjamin has just delivered his final sermon to his subjects, and he takes a moment to gauge their response:

And now, it came to pass that when king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered unto him by the angel of the Lord, that he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them. (Mosiah 4:1)

It seems that King Benjamin's words, which discussed the coming of Christ and the suffering associated with His future Atonement, had deeply affected the people. Feeling immense spiritual pain, they collectively cried out for relief:

And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. (Mosiah 4:2)

Since they prayed with faith, with sincerity of heart, they received the relief they sought:

And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come, according to the words which king Benjamin had spoken unto them. (Mosiah 4:3)

The joy and peace described here are real; they're the blessings that come when we repent. I've felt them, at least partially, and to me they are among the sweetest emotions I've ever experienced. They're something to be valued, to be treasured.

King Benjamin recognized what was happening among his people, and so he continued his address. He told his people that if they wanted to keep feeling the things they were feeling, there were three things they should do:

1) They should continue living the process that had brought them such joy in the first place: they should have faith in Jesus Christ and strive to repent of their sins (Mosiah 4:5-13).

2) They should strive to share the blessings they received with their family members, teaching and serving one another and helping each other to live righteously (Mosiah 4:14-15).

3) They should seek to share their blessings with their fellow men (Mosiah 4:16-26). King Benjamin spends a great deal of time here outlining who is deserving of our aid (spoiler alert: it's everyone), but I think his overall message is summed up nicely in verse 26:

And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants. (Mosiah 4:26)

In summary: when we receive a blessing (or, say, an advantage) from God, our charge is to cultivate it and then use it to bless the lives of others.

This is what I've come to understand as the meaning of the phrase "Be Worthy of Your Advantages." In many ways, I am more privileged than those around me. Some of these privileges or advantages have come through hard work and effort, but others have been given to me freely. That thought used to bother me, as it seemed inherently unfair, but in this new light, things seem more justified. If there is something unfair about my status in this world, I can make it fair by using that status to help elevate others.

I really think this is how God intends for such things to work. Take Doctrine and Covenants 46:11-12:

For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God. 

To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby.

It would seem unfair for God to give some gifts to some of His children and not to others, but the disparity is made right when we use all of our gifts to bless our fellows as they use their gifts to bless us. It brings us closer together and forms strong bonds between us (which I think I'll talk about more in a future post).

Getting back to Thanksgiving, I think our first instinct when it comes to thinking about gratitude is to think of saying "Thank You." We think of all of the good in our lives and seek to thank whoever is responsible, be they our friends, our families, or even God. And, as far as first instincts go, I believe it's a pretty good one: it helps us fulfill the first step in King Benjamin's advice. More and more, though, I believe that that's not all we're supposed to do. It seems to me that we can take our gratitude a step further by sharing our blessings, after rendering due thanks.

And that's why I think this post fits right where it does in terms of the time of the year. We've just passed Thanksgiving, where, presumably, we've spent a lot of time thinking about what we're grateful for and expressing that gratitude to others. Having done so, we now turn toward Christmas, with a heavy focus on giving things to others. With what I've discussed in mind, to me it doesn't seem like there could be a more perfect way to play things out.

So that is what I am going to try and do my best to do this season: to think of what I have and then pray to see how I can share it. I invite you all to do so as well, as I believe it will help all of us feel more fully the peace and joy that the Savior wants us to have.

To close, I leave the words of one of my favorite hymns:

Because I have been given much, I too must give;
Because of Thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live
I shall divide my gifts from Thee
With every brother that I see
Who has the need of help from me. 

Because I have been sheltered, fed by thy good care,
I cannot see another's lack, and I not share
My glowing fire, my loaf of bread,
My roof's safe shelter overhead,
That he too may be comforted. 

Because I have been blessed by Thy great love, dear Lord,
I'll share Thy love again, according to Thy word.
I shall give love to those in need;
I'll show that love by word and deed:
Thus shall my thanks be thanks indeed.

-Jesse

 

 

Think On These Things: Amulek's Wife

[This is probably going to be another long one. Just warning you right off the bat.]

Humor me for a minute: I want to talk about a character in the Book of Mormon who isn't named and receives a vague enough mention in just a couple of verses that it's possible that she doesn't exist at all.

I want to talk about Amulek's wife. I'll explain why later.

Refresher: Amulek was the longtime missionary companion of Alma the Younger. The two met shortly after Alma gave up the position of High Priest over the people of Nephi in order to travel the land and preach the word of God. After some profoundly affecting experiences (which we'll discuss in a bit), Amulek decided to join Alma in his life-long preaching mission. The last we hear of him is his sermon on prayer and repentance (Alma 34), given to the poor people in Antionum.

Now, what do we know about his wife?

First, let's look at Alma 10:11, where Amulek describes his interactions with Alma:

For behold, he hath blessed mine house, he hath blessed me, and my women, and my children, and my father and my kinsfolk; yea, even all my kindred hath he blessed, and the blessing of the Lord hath rested upon us according to the words which he spake. [emphasis mine]

The phrasing here is interesting: is Amulek admitting to practicing polygamy? There's somewhat of a precedent set before amongst wicked Nephites like those in Ammonihah (see Jacob 2), but it seems like such an isolated incident that I'm not sure that's what's going on. Additionally, in Spanish the phrasing used is more akin to "the women of my house," which is less possessive and seems to imply other women (grown children, extended family) who were simply living in Amulek's abode. Whatever that case may be, it seems that Amulek had at least one wife, since he mentions that Alma blessed his children (which do not simply spring up into existence on their own).

Now, let's look at another verse, which takes place after the events of Ammonihah (which we'll get around to. Let's see how many balls I can keep in the air before you lose interest):

Now as I said, Alma having seen all these things, therefore he took Amulek and came over to the land of Zarahemla, and took him to his own house, and did administer unto him in his tribulations, and strengthened him in the Lord. (Alma 15:18)

After everything that happened in Ammonihah, Alma takes Amulek back to his (Alma's) own house to rest and recuperate from what they went through. What strikes me here is that it very much sounds like Amulek went there alone, without all of the friends and family he described earlier. Why would this be?

I've come up with a few theories. The first (which I'll come back to a lot) is that this discrepancy is just due to the writing/editing of the Book of Mormon. For whatever reason, the creators and compilers of the Book of Mormon did not mention women, even when it's apparent that they had to have played a part. For instance, take Alma: in Alma 31 and the subsequent chapters we read about Alma's sons, but nowhere do we even find a mention of his wife. Clearly she has to have existed, and I imagine that her influence on her sons was just as defining as Alma's was, but for whatever reason, she was left out of the narrative.

So, again, there's our first possibility: Amulek took his entire family to Alma's house, and the record simply didn't mention anyone except Amulek. If we take in more evidence and conjecture a bit more, though, other options reveal themselves.

In fact, in the light of another scripture, we can debunk/clarify at least part of the first theory. Here's Alma 15:16:

And it came to pass that Alma and Amulek, Amulek having forsaken all his gold, and silver, and his precious things, which were in the land of Ammonihah, for the word of God, he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred...

Amulek's stance in what happened in Ammonihah (we're getting there, I promise) was pretty radical. It was in such opposition to his former way of life that he was disowned by his father, his friends, and a large part of his family. So, even if Amulek didn't go alone to live with Alma for a spell, he definitely left behind a large part of his former support network, which is sad to contemplate.

However, it's also possible that this scripture meant to imply that he was abandoned by everyone, including his immediate family. It could be that even his own wife and children turned their backs on him before he was expelled from the city, leaving him alone with Alma. If this is what happened, then Amulek might have felt the sting of their loss twice over, as all of the people in the city of Ammonihah were killed by Lamanites shortly after the whole affair (Alma 16:1-3). As we discussed, Amulek definitely had some former friends and family in Ammonihah, but if he went to Zarahemla alone, then it's possible that he lost everyone he had cared about in that attack, never to be seen again in this life.

So now we have two possibilities as to the fate of Amulek's wife: she may have accompanied him to Alma's house, or she may have stayed in Ammonihah and perished in the Lamanite attack.

But there's one other possibility I can glean from this account.

Before I get into it, I just need to stress something: what happened in Ammonihah, what I'm about to talk about, is not pleasant. It is inhumane and cruel. Because of the language of the scriptures, it is not something that I think most people tend to dwell on, and it is not something that I particularly like to dwell on. However, the point of this whole post, the lesson I want to get across, came about exactly because I did dwell on this scene one day. So, just know that, like Mormon, I do not desire to harrow up the souls of men and women by describing these things, but also like Mormon, I do so because it serves a purpose.

So, with that in mind, let's get into what happened in Ammonihah:

Alma entered the city with the intent to preach, to bring people to repentance. The people didn't recognize his authority and threw him out of the city almost immediately. Commanded by an angel to return, he met Amulek and, after spending time with him, converted him to the cause. Alma went back to preaching, this time supported by Amulek, an insider. They debated at length with a lawyer named Zeezrom, and they eventually convinced him of the truth of their words. Some people saw this and began to believe, but the majority only became more enraged as they watched Zeezrom concede the debate. They reacted violently, accosting Alma and Amulek and binding them while they drove the rest of the men who believed from the city and into the wilderness.

The mob then stormed the houses of all of these men, capturing their wives and children and seizing all copies of the scriptures they could find. They created their very own "lake of fire and brimstone" (see Alma 14:4), likely a pit dug into the earth and then set ablaze. Having accomplished this, they threw all of the scriptures into the pit to be destroyed. Having accomplished that, they threw the captured women and children into the pit as well to die by being burned alive.

I don't want to beleaguer the point, but these were not quick deaths. They were not painless deaths. Those cast into the pit found themselves thrust into a literal hell, forced to witness the agonizing deaths of their friends and children while being consumed by pain and flame themselves.

In our third scenario, this is the fate that Amulek's wife and his children suffered. Death by fire.

Why bring this possibility up? Why paint such an awful scene of horror and pain?

Alma 14:9-10:

And it came to pass that they took Alma and Amulek, and carried them forth to the place of martyrdom, that they might witness the destruction of those who were consumed by fire.
And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained...[emphasis mine]

I don't think that quite adequately sums up how he felt.

---

I know what you may be thinking, the idea I may have placed in your mind: Amulek watched his family die in those two verses.

Personally, I don't think that's actually the case. If the Book of Mormon were some great work of fiction, some grand drama envisioned by an enterprising author, I might believe it. But here we come to the reason I even bother bringing any of this up:

The Book of Mormon is not a work of fiction. It is not just a story. Amulek is more than just a name on a page: Amulek was a man, a man with real emotions and experiences. A man who, while he may not have personally witnessed the death of his own family, witnessed the horrifying martyrdom of many innocent women and children, and so cried out:

How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

Alma was a man as well, a man who, while he may not have had a personal investment in this crisis, was still looking down into the faces of women and children perishing in the flames, crying "Save us!" with their eyes if not also with their smoke-filled lungs. He was a man filled with every possible amount of human compassion and empathy as the rest of us, which gives new weight to his response:

The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand...

Alma knew of the power of God to save from both physical and spiritual peril; he experienced it firsthand. He knew that, if it were God's will, he could command the fire to cease and the believers to be delivered from the pit. But at that moment, he knew it was God's will that these His children return to His presence, and so fighting against every natural impulse and instinct for compassion, he stayed his hand. Amulek, disheartened, wondered aloud if they would be burned as well once the others were consumed. Alma noted that their captors made no moves to do so, and so resignedly concluded that their work was not yet done.

---

In the end, I don't think we're actually any closer to knowing what happened to Amulek's wife than we were in the beginning. I don't claim any sort of authority in laying out these possibilities. And, really, that's not what matters, that's not why I wrote this post. I wrote this post because considering the possibility that Amulek's wife might have perished in the fire allowed me to see him and Alma, not as characters in a story, but as humans who lived out their lives on this earth. It's been said that there are only two classes of people in our lives: those whom we love, and the rest, whom we don't yet know. And what better way to come to know someone than to see their suffering and their trials through their own eyes?

---

There are some stray thoughts concerning this story that I may include in a separate post. Besides those, I have one story left to examine, one Thing left to Think On from the Book of Mormon. After that, who knows?

Think On These Things: Helaman 5

I'm not sure I ever thought I'd post on this blog again.

Time flies; things change. It's now been over two years since I was released as a missionary. While I've kept learning and growing and trying to help others where I can, I haven't really felt the need to publish these escapades in blog form.

Until now.

See, I've been thinking a lot about the Book of Mormon recently. After reading it through a few times after my mission, more recently I've started just studying certain chapters or stories individually, giving me more time to focus on them and think about them. Doing so has reminded me of experiences I had with the book during my mission, and it's prompted new, similar experiences now. And suddenly it felt like I needed to write about them again.

I can't claim that these insights and thoughts are going to be original or novel or even something you've never thought of before. Like my journal writing, I find that I'm writing these more for myself than for anyone out there. But, if you read it and find something new or something you like, then I'll be glad to have helped out a little.

So, let's begin, shall we?

---

Today's topic: Helaman 5. Most people probably know this chapter because of a widely-quoted scripture contained therein, namely verse 12:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Previously, I'd appreciated this scripture on its own merits, seeking for ways I could build my own foundation in order to withstand whatever fiery darts might come my way. However, since then I've come to see how it relates more personally to the men described in this chapter, and how the entire chapter of Helaman 5 itself can be seen as a demonstration of this powerful verse.

Let's step back a bit for some context: this verse was spoken by Helaman (son of Helaman, son of Alma, son of Alma, son of hey why don't you just look at this chart instead and come back when you have the people straight) to his sons, Nephi and Lehi. Helaman gave them this counsel right before they left to start declaring God's word for the rest of their lives. They were so disheartened by what they saw going on around them that they dedicated their lives to preaching God's commandments, and the chapter notes that they remembered this specific counsel (and the other counsel Helaman gave them) as they started.

So, how did they do as lifelong missionaries?

Pretty well, it turns out.

Verses 14-16 lay out their gameplan: they start out in the Nephite city of Bountiful, then make a broad sweep of the major Nephite cities before heading into Lamanite territory. Both demographics (Nephites and Lamanites) represented a significant challenge: the Lamanites at this time were at their usual standard of spiritual ignorance and anti-Nephite sentiments. The Nephites weren't necessarily hostile to Nephi and Lehi (their own people), but teaching them entailed a different challenge: rather than being ignorant to the church, many of these people were previous believers that had since abandoned the church and its teachings and were knowingly breaking commandments. An earlier account of a similar group of Nephites (Alma 47:36) notes that in turning from their knowledge, they actually become more hardened and anti-church than the Lamanites ever were.

So, Nephi and Lehi had their work cut out for them.

And yet, they were not dismayed by these challenges, rather, they seemed to face them head-on. Verses 17 and 18 of Helaman 5 describe how Nephi and Lehi taught with power, and how that power led to the conversion of many people. How many exactly? Well, among the Nephites, we don't know exactly; the record just states that they convinced "many" of the dissenters of the error of their ways. That's a little dissatisfying to read (we crave exact details), but frankly, given the previous descriptions of these former believers, it seems to me at least slightly miraculous that they converted any of them at all.

As for the Lamanites, we have a much more concrete figure. Verse 19 says that Nephi and Lehi's teaching convinced 8,000 of the Lamanites living in the land of Zarahemla (which until recently had been Nephite territory) to repent, be baptized, and join the church.

8,000 people. That's nearly three times the population of my hometown. On a whim, I googled "8,000 people" and found a bunch of pictures that represented that amount. Take a look at those pictures for a minute, then consider that two men influenced that many people to make major life changes just by speaking to them.

Power indeed.

Now things start getting interesting.

Perhaps emboldened by their successes among the Nephites and the Lamanites, verse 20 notes that Nephi and Lehi set out for the city of Nephi, the Lamanite capital, as their next stop on their let's-teach-and-baptize-everybody tour. They didn't make it far, though, before they were captured by an army of Lamanties and thrown into prison near Nephi.

Let's think about this for a second: an army of Lamanites picked them up and took them back to the capital.

Do armies generally wander about the land and just capture whoever they may find in their path? No, so this army had a purpose (otherwise I'm not sure it'd be called an army).

Do armies with orders to attack a specific city make random detours back to where they came from just to deliver two guys they found along the way? No.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? The fact that the army found Nephi and Lehi wasn't coincidental: the king of the Lamanites sent an army to capture them. An army. That's how impressive Nephi and Lehi's reputation was. That is how powerful their preaching was: the king of a nation commanded his army to apprehend them before they could speak to any more of his subjects.

Going on, verse 22 says that Nephi and Lehi were kept in the prison for many days and were deprived of food during that time. Eventually, a group of prison guards was sent into the cell to kill them. Now, this begs the question: if the plan all along was just to kill Nephi and Lehi, why didn't the army just do it when they first encountered the brothers outside of Zarahemla? There's no official word on this, but I think the Lamanite's actions are telling. They only attempted to kill Nephi and Lehi after they had been starving in a prison cell for who knows how long; I think it's entirely possible that the army didn't try to kill Nephi and Lehi because the soldiers didn't believe they could.

Now that I've spent all of this time outlining how powerful Nephi and Lehi seemed to the people of their day and what miracles they brought about, it's time to burst the bubble: they were just men. Humble, righteous men? Definitely. Eloquent, thoughtful men? Entirely possible. Men blessed with the power of God to aid them in their labors? Certainly, but in the end, for all intents and purposes, they remained normal, mortal men.

So now let's consider what they might have been thinking at the point of verse 22. They only recently abandoned all other temporal pursuits so that they could preach the gospel to strangers, strangers who often did not have the kindest feelings toward them. Despite this, they had success, and quite a lot of it, due to their hard work and the power of God working through them. Maybe they allowed themselves to feel hopeful about the future. Maybe they thought that, if things kept going like this, they might not have to spend their entire lives preaching after all.

But then things went south, and they went there quite quickly. A hostile army accosted them and threw them into prison. They were kept in that prison cell for days, without food. Seeing as how they were mortal men, this made them weak. And then, after days of this torment, a group of guards enters their cell, with the intent to kill them. The brothers, despite their hunger and weakness, rise and stand to face their captors.

Did they hope for a miraculous deliverance like that given to Alma and Amulek so many years before?

Or did they resign themselves to their fate, knowing that, as Alma once said, the Lord sometimes allows the righteous to be slain so that his judgement can fall upon the wicked?

I see the guards start to advance. The moment of the brothers' doom seems to have arrived. I see them closing their eyes, thinking back to the words of their father:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

The devil had sent his shafts and the winds to propel them forward. He had sent his thunderous storms filled with devastating hail. He had sent opposition. He had sent people to denounce them and capture them and starve them and finally to kill them.

But Nephi and Lehi didn't fall.

A pillar of fire surrounded the brothers, driving back the Lamanite guards but leaving those enclosed by it intact. That this divine protection was unexpected is apparent from verse 24; it notes that upon seeing the pillar of fire surrounding them but not consuming them, Nephi and Lehi took courage. Thus emboldened, they began to preach again, and this time their preaching led to a powerful spiritual experience for the guards who came to kill them. All of them went forth and preached after this experience, leading to a massive conversion across the entire land. This conversion, in turn, led the Lamanites to return land that they had taken from the Nephites earlier, something the Nephites had failed to accomplish through military might and force of will.

To bring this about, Nephi and Lehi listened to their father. They build themselves upon a strong foundation. The devil came and threw all he had at them, but in the end they did not fall.

And that's what I think about when I read Helaman 5.

---

And that's about how these posts are going to go. Not all of the stories I have in mind are as self-contained as Helaman 5, so there will be a few differences moving forward. Some stories might be told over multiple posts. Some posts might examine the same story from multiple angles.

I have a few more ideas, a few more ideas I'd like to share. We'll see how things go after that.

Have a wonderful week, everybody. Take care of each other. Keep Moving Forward.

-Jesse