Alma 36

To Helaman

Alright, listen. I swear there’s a direct correlation between keeping God’s rules and having prosperity. Call it “doing well by doing good.”

Speaking of God—and when don’t I?—always remember how he snapped the chains of our forefathers in Egypt. Literal chains, spiritual chains.

Now, you’re young and I get what that’s all about. I know I have to do some special pleading to get you to listen to me. But my point is, trust God like the ancients did and he’ll hold your head up when others are trying to dunk it in the toilet. Not only that, he’ll let you, the real you, fly once your carcass is turning to mold.

This is Divinity 101. You have to be schooled in it. It’s not innate. You have to get reborn and, in my case, have an angel for an after-hours tutor. I said to him, “I’m not worthy!” and he said, “So what?”

I know you’ve heard this a thousand times, but I hung out with Mosiah’s boys and tried to sink God’s church into oblivion. So God sent an angel to set up roadblocks for us. We met him, he spoke—the way thunder speaks to foothills—and we all collapsed. Just fainted dead away. And he said, “Get up!”—again like thunder. So I did and looked at him as he said, “If you’re bent on killing the church, I’ll kill you. Simple equation.”

So I fell back down, playing dead. As it turned out, the angel paralyzed me. I couldn’t move or talk for seventy-two hours. That opened up more space for him to talk, of course. Which he did. I heard some of it, though I was trying to block it out, which I always do when I hear something that I don’t have a good answer for. So yes, the angel chopped out my tongue for a few days—spiritually, I mean—while I stopped up my ears—also spiritually.

You really can’t imagine how scared I was. It was like God was raking my soul trying to pull all the rocks out of it. A big, deep, iron rake, too. Not that flimsy wooden kind. “This must be hell,” I thought. And for what? Youthful indiscretions? No, defiant rebellion against everything that people, including God, held sacred. Okay, so I’d murdered a few people—spiritually, I mean (forgive my hyperbole, but I’m trying to make a point). Okay, lots of people. And now my brain was screaming at the mere thought of meeting God. I’d prefer total annihilation to being called on God’s carpet.

Again, seventy-two hours of this. Devil-visions, a knotted stomach, and ringing ears, all while completely paralyzed and lying on the ground in my own defecation.

Then I remembered Jesus. I started to say in my head, “O Jesus, have mercy on me. No reason you should, I know, but I’m tasting my own existence and it’s like horseradish. Chains are tightening on my mind, cold metal that will grip forever.

And then, poof, it was all gone. I not only felt fine, if a little drained, but I couldn’t even remember what I’d ever done wrong.

It was like letting go of an arrow: my soul had been pulled back like bowstring about to break and then it got let go. My vision shot like an arrow into this spectacular light. I felt as good as I had felt bad. Horror crossed over into delight. Nothing, I thought, could have felt worse. Now nothing, I thought, could have felt better. (I know, I was young like you and hadn’t felt much severe pain or even observed it. So my empathy meter was questionable.)

I even had a visionary flash, like Lehi used to: I saw God on his throne, more singing angels than I could count, and, of course, myself sitting on the spiritual outskirts, stuck in the New World.

I felt stronger by the minute, till I got up and showed everyone I was cured. And that’s what I call being “born again.” Others may do it differently. But as your generation says, that’s how I roll.

From then till now I’ve been the hound of heaven, chasing people into repentance. I tasted something that day and I wanted to share the flavor with anyone and everyone. I didn’t just want people to change. I needed them to change. Can you call zeal an addiction? If so, I’ll never be in recovery. There’s no rush like God’s rush.

I’ve done well. Lots of converts. New brothers and sisters. Extended family extending every day. And all of us know God.

God and that family support me in all the rascal-beating I get, all the forceful anti-me rhetoric of kings. God bailed me out of prison with earthquakes and sawed off my fetters. Yeah, I trust him. He’s on my side.

He’ll make my bones fatten up with flesh again, then usher me into his drawing room. One more bonus miracle for the heavenly man who dragged the Israelites from Egypt and drowned the Egyptians as they whipped their chariot-horses into the Red Sea.

Just so, he pulled us with his heavenly magnet across the entire ocean, with only a fool’s boat and prayers to keep us afloat.

One has to keep such things in mind before proceeding with life.

So how can one not think God will bless those who speak up for him? Or follow his words? And how can one not think—given his penchant for jealousy—that to ignore him is to court eternal banishment. This is not news. Unless you haven’t been paying attention. Which is always possible for a teenager.