Mormon
starts talking about the sin of doing nothing in the face of suffering and
wrong, and says we must repent and be up and doing. Anxiously engaged, I guess.
It is hard to know how and when, when there is so much suffering all around.
Sometimes I avoid problems because I don’t know how to begin to deal with them.
I went to Sacrament meeting in Fernando’s ward yesterday, and one of the
speakers talked about becoming a Zion people partially means there are no poor
among us. Sometimes, helping people seems so overwhelming because there seems
to be no end. It isn’t a task to accomplish and finish sometimes, sometimes it
is ongoing needed help into forever. For my task oriented mind that is so
difficult and stressful to even think about, let alone do. But as I heard him
talking about it I realized that the justification I tell myself about not
helping people who aren’t trying, or won’t help themselves, are really that,
just prideful justifications. I suppose, like everything, it comes back to
being spiritually in-tune and knowing which things are your things to do,
because no one can do everything. But I do love his call to “begin to be up and
doing.”
Moroni’s
threatening letter also reminds me of another truth I have been trying to learn
for several years. I feel like I have to know the perfect answer and do the
perfect thing before becoming involved or trying. But here, he knew what his
goal was, and he was trying to accomplish it imperfectly, and he was totally
wrong. But he was in there trying. I don’t have to be afraid of being wrong.
That is a hard lesson for me to learn deep inside where decision making
happens.
I
also love that Moroni was not afraid of power or opinion of others in following
what he knew God wanted him to do. He knew that he had been commanded on this
fight the Lamenites course of action, so he was all in. I do no often have that
sense of surety of purpose, but when I do I need to have that kind of
courageous faith.
Moroni’s
letter also shows the folly of judging other people’s intentions. He assigns
meaning and value to situations and other people’s actions that are completely
wrong. We all do this. It is good to remember when I am getting angry.
It
also shows how we can misinterpret revelation. Moroni felt God tell him that he
did not want his army to starve. He may have even felt like it was revelation
that he would have to fight for that food. But how he tried to apply that
revelation was not accurate. However, God is so great that he took Moroni’s
trying and made it work how it needed to. Even though Moroni misunderstood and
was completely wrong, he was doing the best he could to follow revelation and
the will of the Lord, and the Lord used his grace to magnify those efforts.
Another reason never to make choices based on fear, even fear of being wrong.
No FEAR!
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