Steadfast and Immovable!

8/5/2013 through 8/8/2013 I read Mosiah 12–18;

 Abinadi rebuked King Noah and his wicked priests and called them to repentance. As you might expect, the wicked king rejected the message and ordered that Abinadi be killed. But one of King Noah’s priests believed Abinadi’s message and repented, Alma, he even tried to save Abinadi. Alma has an important role throughout the rest of the book of Mosiah. It took great courage for him to stand up to the king and fellow priests and defend a man they are angry with and want to kill.

Despite the danger of ticking off King Noah and eventually being killed because of it, Abinidi chose to preach and teach anyway.I have pondered how strong enough to stand that I am. I will be honest, I fear man ... it would be very hard for me to step outside of my comfort zone to defend truth and righteousness! I am not saying I wouldn't do it ... but it sounds very overwhelming to me. As I have pondered these chapters and Abinidi I recalled an incident from my own past; A friend of mine from another faith asked me to accompany her to a womens retreat with her church women's group. I did. One of the events scheduled was a lecture over dinner from a popular christian author (not LDS). She had a valuable message and I took a great deal from it. What went wrong was that she made a joke about President Hinckley. If that wasn't hard enough for me to hear other women in the room started making jokes about him and other LDS prophets. At first, I just let it go, but the jokes were getting worse and I could see that any second this place was going to turn into a "Mormon bashing" fest. I prayed for courage silently...my friend was very quiet as she could tell many women had "crossed the line". I stood up and said to the women at my table only, " These jokes are not only not funny, but very offensive ... they are based on stereotype and and lies. These men are just men to you ... however, they are prophets to me and that demands respect. If you cannot respect them, can I ask you to respect me enough to stop." my voice was calm and very un-accusing, when I finished speaking I realized the whole room was silent. (talk about scary!!!)  Then the speaker said something that calmed my fearful soul. "Ladies, this woman has treated us with nothing but respect since we came together. We owe her the same courtesy. Please accept my sincerest apology as I am the one who started this."  I accepted and sat down, but the tone in the room had changed to one of irreverence to one of deep spirituality. The talk she was giving changed too. She actually spoke of tolerance and respect. No one said anything to me, but I did feel strangely out of place the rest of the weekend. My friend never asked me to accompany her again. (It's OK, I wouldn't have wanted to go anyway)   I was strong enough to stand ... steadfast and immovable... and though that particular incident was minor to some other's face, it makes me thing that next time I can me strong enough to stand again. 

Some of the greatest lessons in these chapter's would be that what you do in this life matters! We must choose light rather than darkness...life rather than death.

 "Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver;  neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell; therefore, God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time." Mosiah 13:3