You Can Regain What You Have Lost

Sometimes reading about the pride fall of the Nephites just breaks your heart.  They have received so much light and knowledge and blessings.  Yet still they fall.  But we aren't so different from them.  If we don't learn from their mistakes, we too will fall into the pattern.

As I've been studying Alma, not only have I learned a lot about how to avoid the pride fall, I've learned how to recuperate from it.  By Alma 55, the Nephites have risen and fallen a couple of times.  After contentions among their own people. the Nephites were left weak, the Lamanites took control, and for a couple of chapter now the Nephites are working to gain their power, land, and people back.  I love that God is so merciful that He always gives them a chance to repent, rebuild, and strengthen themselves again.  In this chapter, there is a GIANT IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

YOU CAN REGAIN WHAT YOU HAVE LOST!

Through a very cool plan that basically involves getting the Lamanites drunk and stealing back the Nephite prisoners, the Nephites "began again to be victorious, and to reclaim their rights and their privleges."  The Lamanites tried everything to get the power back; they tried to get the Nephites drunk, poison them, attack them at night, but nothing worked.  Why?  What is different about the Nephites now?

"The Nephites were not slow to remember the Lord their God in this their time of affliction.  They could not be taken in their [the Lamanites'] snares."

So far in Alma, we have learned that the number one way to keep yourself from falling into the pride cycle is to always remember God and Jesus Christ.  Alma 55 shows us that the number one way to regain what you've lost after falling into the pride cycle is the same thing: to always remember God and Jesus Christ.  Isn't it interesting that this is a part of our baptismal covenant?  What a loving Heavenly Father we have who gives us all of the tools we need to be successful in this life and avoid the pitfalls of the natural man!  We have all that we need to get back to Him.  We just have to apply it. 

I know that if we remember God and Jesus Christ in our lives, we will not fall into the snares that Satan puts before us.  They may hurt us a bit, and we may struggle and feel sad or lost, but we will not fall.  Because remembering Jesus Christ means we have built our house upon Him.  With the rock as our foundation, we will not fall.  It is a promise from God. Whether we are avoiding the pride fall or regaining what we have lost after falling, as we do our part to remember and follow Jesus Christ, we will receive the promises of God. 

Love,

Rachel