Book of Mormon Mondays - Taking a Risk

Derek and I read Alma 19 last night.  It's the chapter where King Lamoni and his household are converted.  This time around, the part that impressed me the most wasn't the miraculous act of raising the King from a coma-like state.  Or the King's amazing turn around.  It was Abish.

There are few women in the scriptures.  I'm not completely clear on why, and I'm not completely comfortable with it.  But I've accepted the fact that when you have limited amounts of writing materials and time, and the extreme difficulty in actually writing, somethings need to be left out.  So to me, that means that the women are in the scriptures must be really important and we should sit up a little straighter and pay attention to them.

I always knew Abish was special.  She had secretly been a believer since she was a child.  On the surface, that might seem cowardly... the secret part.  But really she had to be!  She was a Lamanite, a people who REALLY weren't believers in Christ and his gospel and if she had been more public with her beliefs, she could have been persecuted or even killed!

Abish was the one who spread the news.  This is what it says...

17 Thus, having been converted to the Lord, and never having made it ^aknown, therefore, when she saw that all the servants of Lamoni had ^bfallen to the earth, and also her mistress, the queen, and the king, and Ammon lay ^cprostrate upon the earth, she knew that it was the power of God; and supposing that this opportunity, by making known unto the people what had happened among them, that by beholding this scene it would ^dcause them to believe in the power of God, therefore she ran forth from house to house, making it known unto the people.

She took a big risk to share the gospel, if you will.  She felt the Holy Ghost telling her that what happened was by the power of God.  And she wasted no time.  It says "she ran forth from house to house."  She didn't just run outside and then call out to anyone who could or would hear.  She went door to door running.

Abish knew the truth of the situation so clearly, that she didn't even think for one moment that others would misunderstand and think there was an "evil spirit" (verse 18), or that their enemy had killed their King and Queen.

But as happens to all good things, opposition came and the people who heard Abish's story didn't believe that it was the "Great Spirit's" or God's doing.

  18 And they began to assemble themselves together unto the house of the king. And there came a multitude, and to their astonishment, they beheld the king, and the queen, and their servants prostrate upon the earth, and they all lay there as though they were dead; and they also saw Ammon, and behold, he was a Nephite.

  19 And now the people began to murmur among themselves; some saying that it was a great evil that had come upon them, or upon the king and his house, because he had suffered that the Nephite should ^aremain in the land.

  20 But others rebuked them, saying: The king hath brought this evil upon his house, because he slew his servants who had had their flocks scattered at the ^awaters of Sebus.

  21 And they were also rebuked by those men who had stood at the waters of Sebus and ^ascattered the flocks which belonged to the king, for they were angry with Ammon because of the number which he had slain of their brethren at the waters of Sebus, while defending the flocks of the king.

  22 Now, one of them, whose brother had been ^aslain with the sword of Ammon, being exceedingly angry with Ammon, drew his sword and went forth that he might let it fall upon Ammon, to slay him...

But good always comes from sharing the gospel.  Ammon was protected by God. The offended man who raised his sword to kill Ammon was struck dead.  And by this and other miraculous happenings (read chapter 19), many were converted and some weren't.  That's just the way it goes sometimes.  Everyone has their free agency.

So I guess what I got out of this story this time was go ahead and take a risk sharing the gospel.  It might seem bad at first and the people you share with might not immediately become believers, but it's always a good idea to share.