Alma 31:30

Alma 31:30

. . . O Lord, wilt thou give me strength that I may suffer with patience these afflictions which shall come up on me . . .

Alma, as leader of the church, has been emotionally fraught as he traveled around the Nephite lands and found that so many of his people had deserted gospel teachings and were setting their hearts upon "all their precious things".  And so he prays for strength.

This prayer is a reminder to all of us that during difficult times we need inner strength. Strength does not take away the pain but allows us to move forward with our lives in the midst of pain.

It usually take some difficulty in our lives to teach us that lesson. Some personal crisis comes along and we fall apart. We feel alone, deserted, without a footing. Hopefully, like Alma, we fall on knees in prayer asking for strength. And that strength comes. 

To me that is the greatest gift that God gives us - strength to endure, to learn, to change, to grow, to feel His presence in our lives.  As Rabbi Harold Kushner says, "People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles, any more than children who pray for bicycles, good grades, or boyfriends get them as a result of praying. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. They discover that they have more strength, more courage than they ever knew themselves to have. Where did they get it? I would like to think that their prayers help them find that strength. Their prayers help them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage which were not available to them before."  p. 138 When Bad Things Happen to Good People

On a personal level there is so much resignation that must come as we experience the vicissitudes of life: death, divorce, illness, disability, accident, natural disasters. We can't control them and God can't take them away.

In humility we turn to Him. We find strength. We accept our lot in life, now knowing we are not alone.

In a larger communal spectrum there is much that we should never accept. We must devote our lives to fighting against racism, discrimination of any kind, unjust laws, poverty, illiteracy, etc. We can learn how to do that by following the principles of nonviolence that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr taught us. As I read these principles again today, I realized that it takes true inner strength to live by them.  For Dr. King, as well as for me, that inner strength comes from Christ.

Principle 1. One can resist evil without resorting to violence.

Principle 2. Non-violence seeks to win the "friendship and understanding" of the opponent, not to humiliate him.

Principle 3. Evil itself, not the people committing evil acts, should be opposed.

Principle 4. Those committed to nonviolence must be willing to suffer without retaliation as suffering itself can be redemptive.

Principle 5.  Nonviolent resistance resists "external physical violence" and "internal violence of spirit" as well. The violent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.

Principle 6. The violent resister must have a"deep faith in the future" stemming from the conviction that "the universe is on the side of justice."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. The beauty of non-violence is that in its own way and in its own time it will break the chain reaction of evil."

I love these six principles. I see them in action in the scripture stories; in Alma saying that the "preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which is just", in the sons of Mosiah going amongst the Lamanites as servants and friends, of those same men willing to suffer as they served and of how their willingness to suffer indeed had a redemptive effect upon the Lamanites, and just as surely upon Ammon and his brethren as they learned how the Lord could use their suffering.  I see that same willingness to suffer in the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehites as they laid down their weapons of war and would rather suffer and be killed than to pick up those weapons again. Their inevitable suffering was certainly eternally redemptive for them but also changed the lives of many of those Lamanite warriors who watched them die.

I have to add one more quote from Dr. King. It was hard for him to watch other black leaders lose faith in the power of nonviolence. I think of testimony and what it means to believe in something so strongly that even when others lose faith, you carry on. That is the inner strength Alma was praying for and which he understood was essential.

In an interview with Mike Wallace on CBS news September 27th 1966 Dr King said, "I would like for all of us to believe in non-violence, but I'm here to say tonight that if every Negro in the United States turns against non-violence, I'm going to stand up as a lone voice and say, 'This is the wrong way!'"

Now that is inner strength!