What I learned about weaknesses from the people of Ammon

Maybe most of these blogs will be about the Book of Mormon, since that is what I know best.

My older sister and I were talking this morning about the Great Brain stories. These are fictional, but based on real-life people who lived in my home state of Utah about a century ago. The title character is Tom Fitzgerald, a boy who is very intelligent (hence the name) and sometimes a bit mean. We know from reading another, companion book by the same author, that although he grew up in a mixed-religion home, Tom later decided to become an active Mormon and even served a mission. Please understand that I'm not trying to say that if he had chosen to become an active Catholic, this would have shown that he really was bad, through and through; it's actually the fact that he chose to become active at all in any religion enough to proselyte in it that surprises me.

My sister speculated that maybe he had repented of his meanness so thoroughly that he became a great missionary. I remembered an acquaintance who had had an awful relationship with his sister when he was younger, who is uncommonly kind to her now. N said that when she has a little weakness, it often stays and stays in her character, but when she has a big weakness, big enough to cause her considerable pain when it makes her mess up, she will repent of it so thoroughly that she is never tempted by that thing again.

Which brings us to the People of Ammon, who repented so thoroughly of their weaknesses that thousands of years later, their descendants are still blessed by the actions of the forefathers. They became more righteous than the Nephites. They were known among their Nephite brethren for being honest, zealous, obedient, and faithful; it also says that they were a beloved people. The passive form there-- they were a beloved people-- leaves it ambiguous as to was doing the beloving; but I believe that it was the Nephites themselves, as much as it was Heavenly Father. The Nephites recognized their righteousness, and they loved them for it! The people of Antipus rejoiced when the little (figuratively) sons of Helaman were all spared in battle, rather than feeling jealous because so many of their own men had died.

The Nephites were surely a righteous people. But by the middle of the Book of Helaman-- the beginning of chapter six, to be exact-- we find that their righteousness as a group of people is almost continually eclipsed by the righteousness of the Lamanites, right up through chapter 9 of Moroni, in which the depravity of the Lamanites consists of forcing their prisoners to do that which the Nephites do as a "token of bravery".

What I glean from all this is that I would much rather be a righteous Lamanite than a complacent, thinks-she's-good-enough Nephite. Or, to be more exact, I would much rather repent of my small sins and weaknesses thoroughly before they become so big that they have to be repented of in a big way. I mean, there's no reason to wait-- except for procrastination and complacency.

I also want to gain that level of obedience and every-day energy for living the gospel. When I was younger, I didn't think that obedience was that big of a deal; not that I didn't think I needed to be obedient, but that I thought I was. As I have gotten older, and gotten more attuned to the nuances of what exactly is expected of me-- and also as I have become increasingly aware of the swiss-cheese-like texture of my firm foundation, which I would rather was more like it was made of granite-- as I have become more aware of these things, I have found obedience to be a much more difficult task than I used to think it was. I occasionally find myself thinking that I am too tired to be obedient. Or too stressed out. Of course, in hindsight, I always discover that it would have been much better in the end to have been obedient anyway, but I long for the day when I am obedient like an Ammonite. I long for the day when I am obedient because I have such a strong testimony of the gospel that I have no desire to do anything but be obedient. Perhaps that day will only come when I have sacrificed as much as the people of Ammon did, for the gospel. Quite frankly, that thought scares me. And again, as I think about it, perhaps that is why we have Fast Sunday-- so that we can make such sacrifices a little at a time, refining our characters where the flaws are small, rather than waiting for some catastrophic event to convince us that now really is the time to change.