Alma 32-35 Come Follow Me Book of Mormon with Sam

Welcome to Come Follow Me with Sam! And welcome to the mission to the Zoramites! This section is so interesting because it actually started as a way to attenuate a more political/military movement by building people spiritually. It ended up instead bringing the downtrodden out of the culture. The Zoramites really twisted religion up, so this section is cool because it teaches some principles of the gospel very simply in a basics course correct. I would like to highlight 2 areas. The first is Alma's lecture on faith.. The second is his comments on prayer.

Lets take a closer look at Alma 32 and faith

This is where the famous scripture comes from - if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

There are some important contexts to extract before we should say we get what Alma is saying. I may compare this to Moroni 7 later. 

Alma first establishes that God wants to you believe. he desires that you should believe, and particularly on his word. 

So how do we get his word? Well, we get it from angels and from heavenly messengers to people. Men, women, children. The experiment revolves around getting the word. It is okay if we don't understand all of it. It is okay if we do not know it is true yet. 'But behold, if you will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words...let this desire work in you...that you can give place for a portion of my words.

Here is something to think about. Many times we say faith is a seed, and it is true that you can have a 'seed of faith', like in Jesus parable of the mustard seed, but there Jesus was speaking of the seed as faith and the works as fruits, here, Alma is comparing the word to a seed and faith as the nourishment, with the assurance that you are doing the right things as the fruits.

Alma is saying 'please listen to the words of God, and hold on to them (that is faith!) and as it moves upon you and you begin to feel, to pay attention, and to see if it makes you better or worse, if it doesn't give you the manner of happiness of God, and let it fill your life. The faith is holding on to it as you would every good thing.

42 And because of your ^adiligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the ^bfruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.

thou hast heard my prayer 

This next part is so pure and wonderful to me! Alma and Amulek slowly show the people that they are worshipping everywhere! The synagogues have their place and purpose but they certainly don't have monopoly on worship.

I feel like Alma is saying 'look, I can tell it has been pretty tough on you guys. You are cast out of your synagogues, you are treated like dirt, its not fun to be you guys right now. If you think you have it rough though, Just let Amulek tell you of what he saw in his city before he was (spoiler alert for you zoramites) cast out. Just think now, of how much God wants to hear you! He knows everything you are going through and You can talk to him anywhere!'

I personally feel such a sense of wonder that God listens to every prayer. I know for some of my readers that idea seems so ludicrous. If I was the one who came up with it, I would think it was ludicrous too. But Zenos really believed these things. He said 'Thou art merciful, O God for thou hast heard my prayer, even when I was in the wilderness'. God heard him in the field. He heard him in his house. And here is what that means to me. It means that God hear's me in all my labors as well. It's not so much the geographic location, as it is the activity for me. If I am struggling at home, I can talk to Him and tell Him all about it, and I know He hears. If I am at work, and I pray to Him, He hears my troubles and helps me be better. If I am far from home, if I am in a new situation, if I am surrounded by enemies, He is still with me. He doesn't magic most of my problems away, but he is willing to walk beside me until I can overcome all things. I know this because he already walked through all these trials for me on the cross. Even my work trials, as trivial and temporal as they may be.

Maybe that was why Zenos and Zenock said 'Thou hast turned away thy judgments because of thy Son' and 'Thou art angry, O Lord, with this people, because they will not understand thy mercies which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son.'

Do you think that God is waiting for us to talk to Him, because He can't stand the thought of us suffering what He has already suffered, without help?

Amulek tells us we can pray about everything and he is mighty to save.

18 Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is ^amighty to save.

19 Yea, humble yourselves, and continue in ^aprayer unto him.

20 Cry unto him when ye are in your ^afields, yea, over all your flocks.

21 ^aCry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.

22 Yea, cry unto him against the power of your ^aenemies.

23 Yea, ^acry unto him against the ^bdevil, who is an enemy to all ^crighteousness.

24 Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.

25 Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase.

26 But this is not all; ye must ^apour out your souls in your ^bclosets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.

27 Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your ^ahearts be ^bfull, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your ^cwelfare, and also for the welfare of ^dthose who are around you.

If Amulek, who saw his friends reject him and the believers of Ammonihah burned, and Alma, whose father and probably himself as well suffer under Amulon, and Zenos and Zenock, who ultimately gave their lives for the message of Christ all believed this and taught it, then it may sound ludicrous that God hears every prayer, but I would believe it. But even if I didn't have their witnesses, only their word to do it, I would still believe it because I have gone through Alma's experiment to have faith in their words, and prayed for help on many things I wish I never had to face. Sometimes I have been helped immediately and poignantly. Many times, especially on the hard things, it has been step by step. But whether immediately or not, I really have felt Him walk beside me the entire way.