The Places that We Fear the Most

Well, in less then 48 hours I will be finished with my first of three written exams.  By the time I write another post next Sunday, I will be finished with two of the three written exams.  This morning as I woke up and looked at the books strewn across the floor of my room, I realized that although there are one or two facts that I need to go over again, for each test, I am ready and more than that, I am ready for the tests to be over.  I am looking forward to November 8 at 2:40 pm as I walk back to my car and realize that it is over and now I can concentrate on writing my dissertation and moving on with my life. And oh, I'm really looking forward to falling asleep and not feeling guilty about it.  And I'm sure you are all looking forward to my not writing about my exams or school any more.

I was looking for a picture to go along with this post, but couldn't find one.
So here is a cute picture of my sister's dog Dolly instead.

This past week I've been studying in Alma 8 and a lesson occurred to me that I hadn't really thought about before.  In this chapter, Alma was called to preach in the city of Ammonihah, a city that was growing in wickedness and which desperately needed the word of the Lord and the power of repentance to change.  The people were less than enthusiastic about the message "and withstood all [Alma's] words, and reviled him, and spit upon him, and caused that he should be cast out of their city" (Alma 8:13).  After such a reception, Alma understandably was traveling to a new city while "weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation, and anguish of soul" and was "about to set [his] back towards this land forever" (Alma 8:14, 24).

Few of us can blame Alma for his feelings.  Who would want to go back to a place like that?  Why would you voluntarily return to a place where you had been abused and mistreated by the people?  But in the midst of all this, "Behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, saying:  Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivest thy first message from him.  Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you.  And behold, I am sent to command thee that thou return to the city of Ammonihah, and preach again unto the people of the city; yea, preach unto them" (Alma 8:14-16).

This whole experience was loaded with invitations for Alma to revisit painful experiences, periods, and places from his past, experiences that Alma had probably wanted to just forget about.  First, Alma was being asked to go back to a place where he had been rejected, insulted, and evicted.  What one of us would want to return to a place like that?  But Alma was also being asked to go back to an earlier time in his life, a time in which he had been "seeking to destroy the church of God" (Alma 36:6).  Here stood in front of Alma, the very angelic messenger who had warned him that the path he was on led to destruction.  And he was asking Alma to deliver that same message to the people of Ammonihah (see Alma 8:16-17).  To understand his message, Alma had to go back--if just for a moment--not just to Ammonihah, but to his own sinful and painful past.

As I thought about this message, I realized that God often asks us to do this.  We commanded by the Lord to "Remember Lot's wife" (Luke 17:32), meaning that we are to move on and not dwell on past experiences and past pains and past sins.  But from time to time, the Lord Himself asks us to return to those places momentarily and to face fears and experiences that most of us would rather forget forever.  Why would He do this?  Why would He ask us to face something that by all accounts seems like it would be best left buried and forgotten?  Because He loves us.

Alma's renewed acquaintance with this angelic minister may have stirred momentary memories, but it also provided a comforting new context.  Alma was no longer the boy trapped in rebellion and sin.  He had been changed forever by the majesty of Christ's atoning mercy.  If there were any lingering doubts about his standing before the Lord, this visit and its short trip down memory lane erased those doubts forever.  The angel's presence there in these circumstances was proof of how far Alma had come and how much he had changed.

But beyond that, there were new people trapped in the deadly sin of rebellion and no other mortal was in a better position to help them than Alma.  Alma could help them not just because he was a prophet, but because he understood where they were and how desperately they needed the message of Christ's redemption.  Tragically, this story did not end perfectly for everyone.  Many chose not to repent.  But some did, including two superb missionaries who would later be called along with Alma to preach among a people similar to those from Ammonihah, from whence they had come years earlier.

Difficult though going back can sometimes be, I am grateful for a God who knows that sometimes we need to know that things are different than they used to be.  And I am even more grateful for a God who realizes that in our painful moments, we often gained the very knowledge and empathy that could allow us to help others in the future.

Brett