8-4-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 44, Day 7

8-4-11  “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 44, Day 7

Alma 5

I read the words ‘mighty change of heart’ and in my mind I checked this off my list because I’ve done that…  What a minute! (I thought to myself) Is this something that can be checked off a list?  Why am I feeling like I’ve veered two degree’s off course?  (Pres Uchtdorf story about a plane crashing into a volcano because they were two degrees off course.)

v. 4  They were in bondage and “they were delivered out … by the mercy and power of God.”  Mercy is given when we do not deserve it.  Am I recognizing this mercy?  Do I feel like I deserve or have earned by my own merit the deliverance I have received thus far?  Am I recognizing God’s hand in all things?  Or am I letting Him once again give anonymous service?

v. 6 “Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers? Yea, and have you sufficiently retain in remembrance his mercy and long suffering towards them?  And moreover, have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance that he has delivered their souls from hell?”

I am enjoying some amount of peace as I set my life and my house in order.  My children sleep well.  After  4 long years, I am getting a full night’s sleep.  My house is clean. I am finding the discipline and focus to get done what I intend to do.  It could be very easy to get comfortable in this place.  Comfort to me is death. 

I’m curious what audience Alma is talking to.  Here he is talking to them like they have had a mighty change of heart, and later he says that they are murders.   This seems to be a people who is both (maybe a wide spectrum in the audience) apathetic and cold, but who had once been in a very tender place of mercy who knew intimately of the mercy and love of the Savoir.  Am I becoming apathetic?  Is this my two degrees? 

v.7 “He changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God.”

It seems the lesson here for me is one of remembrance and gratitude.  If I remember to be grateful for having been delivered out of bondage, then I recognize it was by God’s merciful hand, and that puts me in a place of debt, and one of gratitude.  I need to get back to the temple.  Last Sunday’s lesson said we can veer two degrees and not know it when we don’t get to the temple often enough.  It’s only been a month, but it seems like three.