Saturday, May 13, 2017

The Lord Will Help

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I have learned a lot as I have been reading in Ezra and Nehemiah this week. There is more than one story that shows how the Lord will help us to do as he as asked.
As primary children, we learn about Nephi's courage when he was asked to go back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates. Even though he older brothers do not want to go back and are afraid to ask Laban for the plates, Nephi boldly tells his father:
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We, however, do not hear of stories like this in the Old Testament very often as children (or as adults who teach these children). In fact, this week was the first time I had heard of these stories.
In Ezra 4, a temple is being built. The "people of the land" offered to help them, but hindered the progress instead. They reported back to the king and chancellor who then wrote a letter forbidding the people of Jerusalem to continue building the temple. Rather than giving up, they wrote their own letter to explaining why they are building the temple. They started with saying, "...We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded many years ago, which the great king of Israel builded and set up." (Ezra 5: 11) As a result of this letter, they were aloud to continue building the temple.
Next, in Nehemiah 4, we are given another example of how the Lord will help us do what He as asked of us. The Jews are trying to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. These efforts are not seen as a good thing by their enemies. They are mocked and attacked. The people of Jerusalem "made (their) prayer unto (thier) God and set a watch against them day and night, because of them."(Nehemiah 4: 9) The people were brave and trusted the Lord to help them keep out the people who were trying to hurt them.
These are such great examples of doing what is asked of them and trusting the Lord to help them find a way to do it.
In today's world, we are not generally writing government leaders to allow us to build a temple. (I know someone has to get permits, but that is not my point.) Also, most of do not have to fight to keep our home safe or build a wall to keep people out. We are asked to fight other "enemies." We fight pornography. We fight media with foul language and loose morals. We fight the bad influences of peers. We fight to keep temptations out of our homes. How do we fight? We stand up for our beliefs. We turn off the TV. We teach our children the gospel.
I am not the expert in this, of course. To learn more you can read President Henry B. Eyring's talk from October 2010 titled "Trust in God, Then Go and Do."

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