How I Know

My last post about Alma and all things testifying of God contained a second part to it when I wrote it in my scripture journal.  It was one of those things that I felt was more of a private thing and not meant for a blog, but I feel now that I should share it.

I wrote:

Even those who walked by Jesus' side needed the Holy Ghost as a testimony.  A personal manifestation of the Spirit is so essential to our faith.

At times, I have wondered if it was not just me, in my own mind and with my own emotions, creating that warm feeling in my chest that I have for years recognized as the Spirit.  It is a feeling of an expanding heart.  (Perhaps that is what Dr. Seuss was trying to describe in the final pages of the Grinch That Stole Christmas.  "The Grinch's small heart grew threw sizes that day" could have read--the Grinch gained a testimony of Jesus Christ that day.)

I have an experience that I don't quite know how to write about.  Words seem to lend no real explanation to it but I'll try to pin it down with words, for my mind might someday let it slip away, and I don't want it to slip away.

There was one particular morning about a year ago when I was very much wondering if I created these swelling-in-my-chest/burning-in-my-bosom answers to prayers.  Logically, I knew that when I thought about my experience with getting answers to my prayers that it simply couldn't be me because I have been guided too often to places I NEVER would have thought to go and learned things I never in a million years could have figured out on my own.  In other words, I had experience as my proof that these feelings were coming from the Lord through the Holy Ghost and yet...on this particular morning my niggling doubts about answers to prayers were gaining strength.  I wasn't just sort of wondering, I was doubting.

As I knelt to be the voice of our family prayer that morning, I sought the Spirit to help me know who needed special prayers that day but instead of feeling the Spirit of prayer, a sudden blackness seemed to have landed inside my chest.  My heart felt very heavy, and the more I willed my heart to swell and feel peace or light, the more it felt cold and hard.  I tried to shove the feeling aside and reach for guidance, but the blackness just seemed to deepen.

I stopped for just a moment, but then continued, spouting some platitudes in my prayer so as not to let my children know of the distress I was feeling.  I finished the prayer, worried that I had offended God with my doubting heart and that light would not return to me easily.  I figured I had some repenting to do and felt very anxious to do whatever it was I needed to so that I could feel the Spirit again.  Almost instantly, as I thought these things, my heart began to swell with light.  I recognized immediately that the blackness had been an answer to my unspoken prayer about my doubts.  While the blackness had taken over my heart, I had reached inside myself and tried to rid myself of it.  I had breathed deeply trying to diffuse it, but I could not accomplish it.  I knew I had been shown that the feelings given my by the Spirit were not created by me.

Now, if ever a doubt tries to creep into my mind, I think of that morning and the empty blackness I felt compared to the light, peaceful feeling I was given after and that memory chases my doubts away.

Alma 30--All Things Testify

Alma 30 is the chapter that tells us about Korihor.  Korihor went about the land preaching that there is no God and there will be no Christ.  He eventually ends up in front of Alma and I love the approach Alma takes to this.  In Alma 30:40-41 he says:

"And now what evidence have ye that there is no God, or that Christ cometh not?  I say unto you that ye have none, save it be your word only.  But, behold, I have all things as a testimony that these things are true and ye also have all these things as a testimony unto you that they are true..."

He goes onto say that the testimony of their brethren and the Holy Prophets, the scriptures, the earth, and the planets, and the motion of the earth and planets "do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." (v.44)

I love it especially because I think of the naysayers of today and how they are still using the same argument that Satan gave to Korihor.  Whenever I have heard these arguments in the past--that there is no tangible proof there is a God--I have felt on the defensive.  I look around myself and come up without something to point to.  But, truly, it is all around us.  Alma is right.  The testimony of God is everywhere and yet Alma's point did not hold much weight with Korihor, and it doesn't hold much weight today with those who don't want to see.  It seems that there is no other way to gain a real testimony but by the power of the Holy Ghost.

A Holy Calling

I have been thinking about my calling in the church recently and praying about it.  I am in the Relief Society presidency right now and leadership callings are always hard for me.  I have had another one of those experiences with praying and reading my scriptures that I so often get, but that never cease to amaze me.

I had been pondering my calling for some time when in the course of my regular scripture study I read Alma 29.  In this chapter Alma is talking about the missionary efforts put forth by himself and the sons of Mosiah.  Actually, by this time in the chapter he is rejoicing in the opportunity they have had to be instruments in the hands of God.  In and among the wonderful verses of this chapter he says something simple that caught my eye and got me thinking...and praying...and pondering.  For a few days it was in the back of my mind.  In Alma 29:13 he says:  "...God hath called me by a holy calling..."

Yep--that is the simple phrase my mind focused on.  I underlined "a holy calling" and stalled in my scripture study for a while.  In trying to record my impressions and thoughts, I wrote this in my scripture journal:

"I feel as though a calling is less about 'you are meant to be this' as it is about 'I (Heavenly Father) will help you do this!'  A holy calling is one in which the fulfillment of will be aided by divine help and guidance.  Anyone who is willing to be humble and learn will serve well...they will be able to do it.  Perhaps the calling by prophecy [that we read about in the fifth Article of Faith] is less about 'the perfect person for the job' and more about who is ready for that learning experience in their lives.  As we strive to serve others in whatever capacity our callings require, Heavenly Father helps us.  We gain from this a testimony of the reality of our Father in Heaven and can see His loving concern for us and all his children."

Alma 25:16

I have had a few surprising and reoccurring thoughts come into my head lately.  They are thoughts that have been contemplating the difference between "The Church" and "The Gospel."  Normally, I wouldn't separate those two things out.  If you are living the church standards, you are living the gospel, right?

I don't think they are meant to be separated out and so it has been bothering me that my brain has continued to categorize things I do as either "I'm doing this because someone in the Church leadership told me to" or "I'm doing this because it is real gospel doctrine."  I really don't feel like that is right.  I had never done it before.  And so I began to feel like I was missing something, or rather, that I had lost something that I once had.  Was it faith?  I would mentally check up on my testimony...No, faith wasn't my issue.  So what was it that was making me feel this way?

The answer is:  I don't know.  But I know that as I was reading the Book of Mormon the other day, I read something that has helped quiet those thoughts.  It was Alma 25:16.

There is some lead up that needs to be done before delving into this scripture...The Lamanites have continued to convert with more of them burying their weapons and joining the people of Ammon.  Alma 25:15 talks about how they kept the Law of Moses even though they knew that Christ would be coming and that law would eventually pass away.  They kept it because the law hadn't passed away yet, but they didn't just keep it with mindless obedience.  They kept it "considering that the law of Moses was a type of [Christ's] coming, and believing that they must keep those outward performances until the time that he should be revealed unto them."

Alma 25:16 goes on to say:

"Now they did not suppose that salvation came by the law of Moses; but the law of Moses did serve to strengthen their faith in Christ; and thus they did retain a hope through faith, unto eternal salvation, relying upon the spirit of prophecy, which spake of those things to come."

So my version would go something like this:  Now she did not suppose that salvation came by the weekly meetings she attended, her official visiting teaching percentage, how ready her home was to receive visitors, or by how well her children behaved but that doing these things, or at least striving to do these things, did serve to strengthen her faith in Christ;  and thus she did retain a hope through faith, unto eternal salvation, relying upon the spirit.

A Clean Slate?

I am thinking once again about the people of Ammon and their commitment to Jesus Christ. Alma 24:15 says:

"...we have not stained our swords in the blood of our brethren since he imparted his word unto us and made us clean thereby."

That sentiment has a great appeal to me. The sentiment that says--there is a day of commitment that I can point to, and I haven't messed up since then. It is a sentiment I cannot echo and one that maybe I think about too much.

It can be depressing to try to keep a clean track record in everything. I suppose if I'm really going to compare myself, I should stick to the facts. They are talking about not killing people...so I've never done that. Nice job, Ambra. But really all I can see are the many things I resolve not to do again, but do them anyway like yelling, or gossiping, or procrastinating forming a Family Mission Plan like our stake president has asked us to.

I repent. I reset the start time. I count the minutes, hours, days that I make it without messing up. I put check marks next to the things on my list that mean I am a good obedient person. Why don't these things make me happy? Because I know they are fleeting and I will eventually mess up and I will NEVER be done with my list.

And so it goes. I keep trying. I keep feeling defeated as I fall short. How can I express thanks in my prayers for Jesus Christ's Atonement while completely ignoring what it means for me? Why do I let Satan's darts of discouragement lay me so flat that I don't feel like trying again?

Why do I think that I have to "turn in" a nearly clean slate each day and only cause the Savior a minimum of trouble because I really could do pretty much everything by myself?  I heard a talk recently that said: "Jesus doesn't make up the difference. Jesus makes all the difference." I think I need to rely a little more heavily on the Savior than have been lately. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Awestruck

Reading Alma 24 always leaves me in awe.

By this time in the Book of Mormon, the people of Ammon have distinguished themselves from the other Lamanites by changing their name to Anti-Nephi-Lehi and corresponding with the Nephites.  The other Lamanites, along with the Amalekites and Amulonites, decide they don't like how things are going.  They want a new king, and so they make preparations for war to go against the Anti-Nephi-Lehis.  The people of Ammon see this preparation and meet to decide what exactly they should do about it.  They conclude that they must bury their weapons.

It is a fact that escaped me as a child studying this Book of Mormon story--they buried their weapons when they knew a war was surely coming.  I had always thought that they buried their weapons when they were deciding to be baptized.  I thought it was part of the repentance process for them that was subsequently tested by their brethren's attack.  It is a marvel to me that they made the commitment even as their brethren made swords.

As I said, I am in awe.  And then--I can't seem to help myself--I wonder if it was worth it.  Was it necessary for them to lay before the coming army and be slaughtered?  Could they have defended themselves and still been faithful followers of Christ?  After all, the Nephites defend themselves through bloodshed all the time.  I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that they felt they could not sully the swords that Christ had so recently wiped clean from the many murders they had committed.  I also know that in Alma 23:6 it refers to these faithful people saying:

"...yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as...were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away."
 

And, of course, we know that these same people were the parents of the 2,000 stripling warriors that fought with Helaman.

Perhaps there is something to be said about going above and beyond in our commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Pondering

In Alma 22, Aaron teaches King Lamoni's father, who is the king over all the Lamanites.  After Aaron has taught him many things, the king bows "down before the Lord upon his knees" and prays.  One of the things he says is this:

"I will give away all my sins to know thee"  (Alma 22:18)

I have been thinking about those words lately.  They humble and inspire me.  They are worth pondering I think.