I’ve never really digested the fact that fasting and prayer are a commandment. Alma 6:6 says the people were commanded to “fast and to pray oft” for those who did not know God. We still fast and pray today—for our families, for those who are struggling, and for those who have wandered. I had never really thought of that as simply obeying a commandment, although I treat it as a commandment.
Then Alma goes to the land of Gideon.
I’m fascinated by Alma. The heading to Alma 7 tells us these are the words he spoke to the people of Gideon, “according to his own record.” We can record almost anything today with the touch of a button. Alma didn’t have pen and paper, much less a phone in his pocket. Yet somehow he taught, traveled, ministered, and kept a record. Alma was definitely “all in.” Whatever it took, he seemed willing to do the will of the Lord.
One phrase stopped me: “supplicating his grace.” (Alma 7:3)
To supplicate means to ask earnestly and humbly—to plead. Do I plead with the Lord? Yes, I think I do. I plead almost daily that I might be an instrument in His hands. I plead for my family. I want so badly for all of us to be united in Christ, working toward salvation and exaltation together and able to talk about sacred things—the love we have for our Savior, His work, and each other.
Sometimes I look at our noisy family gatherings and wish there were more of that. But perhaps I’m a little amiss in that thought. We are together. We enjoy each other. We laugh. We love each other. And before we scatter back to our homes, we bow our heads and pray together.
Maybe I need to recognize the blessings that are already there while continuing to supplicate His grace for those I still hope for.
Alma knew that kind of joy. He told the people of Gideon that he had “exceedingly great joy” because they were “established again in the way of his righteousness.” (Alma 7:4) I couldn’t help thinking of a daughter who has recently returned to her covenants. Oh, what joy that has brought me—and how I pray that she continues on the covenant path.
Then Alma turns his people toward Christ:
“Repent ye, and prepare the way of the Lord.”
Those words sound remarkably current. We too are being told to prepare for the coming of the Savior. It’s easy to look around at fires, wars, calamities and evil in the world and wonder, How close are we?
But maybe that isn’t the most important question.
Alma tells us what preparing looks like:
- Be humble.
- Be submissive and gentle.
- Be easy to be entreated.
- Be temperate.
- Be diligent in keeping the commandments.
- Ask God for the things we need, both spiritual and temporal.
- Be grateful for what we receive.
- Have faith, hope and charity.
- Abound in good works.
I especially like “easy to be entreated.” It means being willing to listen, receptive to correction or persuasion—not stubborn or hard-hearted.
That gave me a different question:
Am I easy for the Lord to entreat? When He nudges me, how hard does He have to work to get me to move?
Alma ends his sermon with a beautiful prophetic blessing: that the peace of God would rest upon the people, their homes, their lands, their families, and all they possessed, according to their faith and good works.
What a way to leave them.
And perhaps Alma has left me with something just as valuable.
I don’t need to know when Christ is coming nearly as much as I need to know whether I am becoming the kind of person who is ready to meet Him.
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