An Example of Faith

When I was really young, on the way the church my family and I would listen to tapes called Scripture Scouts. These tapes are awesome! The tapes take stories from the scriptures and simplify them and help us learn to apply them to our lives.They always have catchy little songs to go with them. To this day, one of the ones that I remember most says "Alma and Amulek deep inside dark inside dark and lonely prison walls, with the power of faith Alma cried, and the Lord heard his call."

Every morning we have an hour to study and learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and to help strengthen our own testimonies about what we teach. This morning, I once again read the story of Alma and Amulek. For whatever reason, I was in the right mental state so that I was able to learn an amazing lesson about faith. I know I just made a post about faith, but I felt like this was a perfect follow-up because it ties in so well with my other one!

For those of you who don't know about these two heroes, I will give a little summary. In the chapters prior to this, Alma and Amulek are preaching to the people in the city of Ammonihah. They tell the people that they haven't been doing a very good job of keeping God's commandments and the people, because of pride, accuse them of many things. Because their rulers are also corrupt, Alma and Amulek are cast into prison where they are denied food, water, and even their clothes. For a number of days the people come in making fun of them, hitting them, and spitting on them. Every time the people come, Alma and Amulek remain silent and just sit and take it. Finally, after a number of days, when the people come to abuse them, Alma prays for strength to be delivered. Following this prayer, the walls fall down and kill all of the people within except Alma and Amulek are killed and they are able to walk out unscathed.

So there is the story! As I was reading this chapter (which I highly encourage everyone to do, just click on the like above!) I started thinking and wondering. I thought, what did they talk about with each other while they were in prison. It specifically says that they didn't talk when the people were around, but it would kill me to be in complete silence for "many days." That would be hard for me! So I thought, "They must have talked about something, what was it?"

Back in verse 12 we can see that Amulek has some fear. They are forced to watch these wicked rulers burn some of the other believers and he says "Perhaps they will burn us also." But through Alma's response in verse 13 we can see that he has strong faith! He says "Be it according to the will of the Lord." So we can tell at the point that they are put into prison that Amulek's faith was lacking. But after they are freed, we read in verse 28 that is was their faith that allowed them to escape. So where did Amulek's faith come from? I think that is the answer to my question about what they talked about while they were sitting in prison for many days.

When you have one man who has incredibly strong faith in God with another man who has a wavering faith locked and tied up in the same room for a number of days, it only seems to make sense that they would talk about faith. They were in this terrible situation with no guarantee that they would make it out alive. This were definitely not an ideal situation that they were in. And yet they not only kept their faith but we know that in the case of Amulek, his faith was strengthened.

So how does this apply to us? I think the biggest lesson to learn is that everyone has trials in their lives. Just because we have trials doesn't mean that God doesn't love us. I think it actually means the opposite. God wants us to learn and grow and He knows that the best way for us to grow is to have challenges. Another lesson to learn is that of faith. Alma and Amulek were in a situation so bad that I can't even imagine a fraction of what they went through. And yet they not only kept their faith in God, but it was strengthened! They had no proof that they would even survive their situations and yet they stuck to it and persevered.

What a great example of faith and learning from our surroundings and what is going on in our lives! I love the examples that both Alma and Amulek provide to me! This development of their faith helped them to become better and even to give one of the most powerful lessons on faith which can be found here. They are such amazing men!