12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
(Helaman 5:12)
The metaphor Helaman chooses is important here. The Savior is our rock, our foundation. He does not function as a bubble: protecting us from the elements and from the weapons of the adversary. We will not be free from trial and suffering if we choose to follow the Savior. But we will be strengthened to be able to withstand the adversity which we would have experienced anyway.
And what if we were not built upon this foundation? We would be dragged “down into the gulf of misery and endless wo.” Building upon the foundation of Christ makes us resilient: we are better able to manage our emotions and to avoid discouragement. The trials still afflict us, but we have the stamina and the stability to navigate them successfully.
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