Sunday Thoughts

We’ve been reading in the Book of Alma for the last while. We’re getting into the part where Mormon wrote in detail of the wars and conflict that went on between the Lamanites and Nephites some 80 – 60 years before Christ was born. From time to time I’ve wondered about why Mormon included all the details about this time of war. From several years after arriving in the Americas until the Nephite nation was finally destroyed some 1000 years later there were wars and conflicts between the two groups. For most of the history Mormon gave us these wars just get mentioned, without going into much detail. So why choose this particular period to give detail? The more I’ve thought about it the more reasons I find, benefits that we gain because Mormon did that.

At the end of one particularly intense period of war Mormon makes a statement. “Behold, now it came to pass that the people of Nephi were exceedingly rejoiced, because the Lord had again delivered them out of the hands of their enemies; therefore they gave thanks unto the Lord their God; yea, and they did fast much and pray much, and they did worship God with exceedingly great joy.” (Alma 45:1) The people combined their prayers of thanksgiving with fasting as a way to show the extent of their gratitude. You don’t often think of fasting as a way to show thanksgiving. At least, I hadn’t. But that is an aspect of fasting, a way to approach the Lord and let Him know the depth of the feelings of our heart.

That’s one facet of fasting. Isaiah gives us another in the 58th chapter of Isaiah in the Old Testament. He tells us “And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” (Isaiah 58:8, 9). One of the main purposes of fasting is to provide for those in need. That’s pretty well known and understood. But when we’re doing that the blessings go further. When we are using our fast to care for those in need the Lord blesses us with knowledge. Fasting is a key to revelation. Knowledge of the things of the Lord, which is what we sometimes call the mysteries of God, will flow to us like a spring of water.

While I started out talking about the record of wars, what I really wanted to say was about fasting. That’s what has been on my mind the last little while. Because I am diabetic I can’t really fast like we think of as the proper way to fast. Because of the medicine I take to help my body use sugar the way a healthy body does, I have to eat on a regular basis to keep my blood sugar from going too low. If I don’t it can have serious consequences. So I don’t have the option of skipping meals for anywhere near a normal fast of 24 hours. But the more I learn about fasting the greater the power I discover there is in it. So I look for ways that I can still tap into that source of power the Lord has given us. I won’t go into detail, suffice it to say that I have come to learn that when we sincerely try to avail ourselves of the blessings of the Lord, He looks past our inabilities to our heart and the blessings are still available. Anyone can do this with any blessing the Lord has promised us in connection with any commandment He has given us.