“she supposed
that we had perished…”
-once
again: fear is the enemy of faith.
-why had
she supposed this? She had no evidence
one way or another. Perhaps her sons had
been gone an extraordinary amount of time thus providing some rational that
they were never coming back… The truth of the matter is that fear is irrational
but it can be very real. We can be
carried away -completely out of the
realm of the rational or even the probable- when we stray from a perspective
anchored in faith. The natural man, the
mortal man is given to irrationalities and emotional imbalance. The strong emotions of fear, anger and
despair are tools that Satan peddles to the mortal man. These can overwhelm rationality and sober
judgement. They are destructive to our
peaceful lingering in the Spirit as mush as many base behaviors. We do not think correctly. It is almost impossible to “be still”.
Sariah is severely tried.
She fails (in the short-term but is also built up by this test and grows
to overcome later trials). Tests of
faith can take so many forms that it is impossible to know what we personally
will face except that we can be sure that our weakest, most vulnerable point
will be the focus of the trial. She
lists them:
1. losing her home à
“you led us out of the land of our inheritance.”
2. losing her children à “my sons are no more.”
3. losing her own life à “we perish in the wilderness.”
What, in your imagination, would be the most difficult
thing to endure? Financial difficulty, losing a child, a physical handicap, not
having a constant home, etc.? You can
bet that God will use that weakness as leverage on your soul to bring you
unconditionally and absolutely to him. Entrance into his kingdom requires a
broken heart and contrite spirit. I know
of no mortal who has the ability to break his or her own heart and achieve a
submissive spirit without a lot of help.
The process to a broken heart is not a journey void of pain, anguish and
sorrow. Sariah’s murmuring was the
result of a love for her boys but was without the necessary recognition that
“God’s will be done”.
-Because
we know the result we are too quick to judge Sariah’s weakness. It was no easy thing to endure –it tried her
soul to the core. When ours is engaged
in an equally agonizing moment, I think we will want onlookers to be generous
in their estimation and reserved in their judgment.
“she supposed
that we had perished and she had also complained”
-fear
leads to a deterioration of faith.
Waning faith leads us to complain against the representatives of God
(and God himself). One who is filled
with fear cannot have faith and their actions will surely be as those who do
not have faith. The antidote to fear is
faith. The antidote to one who is
complaining is to fill them with faith.
Unfortunately we cannot give our faith to another but we can allow them
to lean on us for support until they can stand on their own. This means
"my sons
are no more"
-why did
Sariah murmur? For fear that she lost
her beloved boys, her children. Out of a
love but with out a recognition that "Gods' will be done." In a harsh statement of fact, Sariah loved
her children more than she loved God.
What if God had required the martyrdom of one of her children during
this “mission” to secure the brass plates?
Would that have been too much and would it have broken Sariah?
Fortunately for her God did not require the “sacrifice of all things”. This being said, the degree of Sariah’s sacrifice
was far beyond what God has required of me so I am loath to find fault with
this woman. I would likely have
complained much earlier about the inconvenience of leaving a very comfortable
life for an unknown future that presented only a few realities: hardship, sacrifice and difficulty. If I am brutally honest with myself I must
admit that I see my reaction being more similar to Laman and Lemuel’s than to
Nephi’s.
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