Sabbath Devotional :: No Other Power

*An Angel Appears to Alma and the Sons of Mosiah* by Minerva Teichert

Many years ago, when our children were young, we had a situation arise in the Glenn household. Our 7-year-old son announced that his tithing money was missing. After some investigation, it became clear that someone had taken the money. This was the first real instance of theft in our home and I was devastated. I sat all five kids down and explained the seriousness of this offense. “This is stealing,” I said, with what I hoped was appropriate gravity. “And in this case, it’s not just stealing from your brother, it’s stealing from Heavenly Father.”

Everyone vehemently denied culpability, and so I sent them off to school. At about 10:00 that morning, the phone rang. It was one of my sons calling from school to confess that he had been the one to take the money. “I’m so sorry,” he said through tears. “I was going to pay it back.”

I told him that I would be right there to check him out of school so that we could talk. I felt like this was a pivotal moment in this child’s moral development, and I wanted to impress upon him the weightiness of his crime. The refrain from one of the songs from the 1970s LDS musical, My Turn on Earth, immediately started running through my mind: “When you choose the very first step on the road, you also choose the last. (Okay, admit it. Some of you of a certain age are singing along in your head right now.) So if you don’t like the end of the road, you better back up, you know you’d better back up fast.”

I knew what I needed to do. I had it all planned out in my head. I would pick him up, get on I-15, and drive straight to Bluffdale. I’d pull off the road where we had a good view of the entire steely grey and barbed-wire structure of the Utah state penitentiary, and then, with a dramatic sweep of my arm, I would say: “Son, the road you stepped on today? THIS is where it leads.”

Thankfully, somewhere between the end of my driveway and the parking lot of Grovecrest Elementary, I took the time to say a prayer to ask Heavenly Father what He would have me do, how He would have me handle this. And as clear as anything, these words came into my mind: Show him where the other road leads.

And so, instead of taking him to the state pen, we drove to the Mt. Timpanogos temple grounds where we spent a treasured hour talking, not about punishment or the consequences of wrong choices, but about love and redemption and the blessings and freedom that come from using our agency for good. It was a sweet and tender experience that neither of us has ever forgotten. And you’ll be pleased to know that this son did not end up in prison, but is, rather, happily married (in the Mt. Timpanogos temple, incidentally) and in med school.

* * *

I was recently reading in Alma about the missionary experiences of Ammon and his brothers, and I was struck by something I’d never noticed before.

As you’ll remember, the sons of Mosiah, after their own miraculous conversion, felt called to go into the lands of the Lamanites to “declare unto them the word of God” (Alma 17: 12). This was no small thing, for “they had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing and plundering (Alma 17:14). In other words, these were bad dudes. The enemy.

The thing that stood out for me during my recent reading of these chapters was the contrast of the approaches of Ammon and Aaron.

Let’s start with Aaron. When the sons of Mosiah reached the borders of the land of the Lamanites, they decided to go their separate ways. We learn in Alma 21 that Aaron journeyed to the land of Jerusalem and began to preach to the Amalekites. He didn’t waste any time calling these wicked people to repentance. In fact, he immediately entered into their synagogues (their sacred spaces) and began to preach to them, telling them that unless they repented, they would be destroyed. Not surprisingly, this didn’t go over very well. In verse 10, we learn that the people became angry with Aaron and began to mock him, to contend with him, and “would not hear the words which he spake.” And so he left and went to Ani-anti where the same pattern ensued, with the same result. Eventually, the contention escalated to the point that Aaron was thrown into prison.

Ammon, on the other hand, took a completely different approach. Ammon, “wise, yet harmless,” has always been one of my favorite figures in the Book of Mormon. Buoyant, intuitive, wise, joyful, humble, loving, and culturally sensitive, Ammon was one of the great missionaries of all time. When the brothers went their separate ways, Ammon journeyed to the land of Ishmael. There, he was immediately taken and bound and brought before the king. Unlike his brother Aaron, Ammon did not immediately call the people to repentance or warn of their destruction. Instead, he acknowledged that he had come to their land unbidden and told the king that he would like to live there. “I desire to dwell among this people for a time; yea, and perhaps until the day I die” (Alma 17:23). The king was disarmed (no, not like that; that part comes later) and was “much pleased with Ammon.” In fact, he offered him one of his daughters for a wife. Perhaps this was a test of Ammon’s true motives. If so, Ammon passed with flying colors because he respectfully declined and said that instead what he’d really like to do is serve the king. Then comes that whole part where Ammon again manifests his disarming personality, a bit more literally this time (sorry, couldn’t help myself), and then further impressed the king by just quietly going about his work in the stables. Note that there has still been no attempt to preach or call anyone to repentance. Instead, Ammon was intent on establishing a relationship of trust with the king and proving his loyalty. In fact, it was not until King Lamoni brought Ammon before him and started asking him questions that Ammon even spoke of God. And rather than going off on how wicked the king and his people were, Ammon simply answered his questions and then taught him, beginning at the creation of the world and focusing on the redemption and the blessings of the gospel. The result of this approach was that King Lamoni was literally overcome, not by guilt, but by joy!

The contrast is instructive. (I do want to point out that Aaron eventually learned some new techniques. Maybe Ammon did some training — held a zone conference or something — with his brothers. At any rate, Aaron’s later success in teaching King Lamoni’s father followed Ammon’s pattern and resulted in King Lamoni’s father exclaiming: “I will give up all that I possess . . . that I may receive this great joy” (Alma 22:15). The ultimate outcome of this more positive and loving approach by the sons of Mosiah was that “thousands were brought to the knowledge of the Lord.” It was remarkable. Whole cities were converted. They became a righteous people and “did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God anymore, neither against any of their brethren” (Alma 23:7).

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the preeminent scholars in the field of psychology, contends that “deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety, and guilt.” (http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=680).

Similarly, there are two basic worldviews and two ways of interacting with and motivating one another — fear-based and love-based.

God’s way is clear: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

As our own principles of peacemaking insist, as followers of Christ, as makers of peace, we must choose love over hate (which is just another way of saying love over fear). And we must do this over and over again.

It’s a challenge. But it’s a challenge that, with God’s help, we can meet. It’s one that we must meet because love is not just the right way, it’s the only way that can be ultimately effective. There is no other power that can overcome evil.

No matter the question, love is always the answer. Always. Love can be fierce. Love can be bold. Love can require hard, even seemingly impossible, things of us and of each other. But love — that choice, that force, that power that has at its center goodness, godliness, respect, and a genuine desire for the well-being of others — is always, always the answer. Love is what created and sustains us. And it is the only power in the universe that can heal and save this broken world.