22 Ye do not remember the Lord your God in the things with which he hath blessed you, but ye do always remember your riches, not to thank the Lord your God for them; yea, your hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord, but they do swell with great pride, unto boasting, and unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities.
Samuel the Lamanite gives us a sobering image of what can happen if we are not grateful. If we convince ourselves that we deserve the blessings we have, and if we ignore the true source of all our blessings, we become proud. Pride leads us to brag, to be jealous, and eventually to harm other people. As relationships break down and we find we can’t trust others, we discover that the blessings we originally claimed as our own are not so easy to retain over time. As Samuel says later in the chapter, our riches can become “slippery.”
Today, I will be grateful for the blessings I enjoy. I will remember that gratitude is a manifestation of humility, and that without humility, I will not continue to seek and receive blessings from my Father in Heaven.
Paul – Your caption on Helaman 13:22 takes me back to Helaman 5 and some things that have come to my attention over the years. The word “remember” is used 14 times in the eight verses between verses 5 and 12. President Kimball once stated that the word “remember” may be the most important word in the English language. The Savior helps us remember Him through the ordinance of the sacrament and also by attending the temple. Remembrance is connected to a sense of priorities, and is a key concept of the Book of Mormon.
Moving on to verse 12 we learn there is safety from Satan and his minions only in Christ. The hail, the storms, the fiery darts (1 Nephi 15:24) of the devil are such things as drugs, immorality and pornography. They cannot hit us if we are holding fast to the word (Alma 26:6-7) and relying on the rock of our Redeemer. I appreciate the certitude of the word “cannot” in the last sentence of this verse. It doesn't say that we most likely won't fall or we probably won't fall, but that we cannot fall if we are built on the foundation of Christ in our lives. It is a promise from a prophet that we can rely on. Truly there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, as verse 5 states. Thanks Paul for your great example of diligence and for sharing your thoughts in this fine blog.
Steve
Steve, thank you for making this connection back to the words in Helaman 5. There is a close connection between remembering, gratitude, and humility, and these are an essential part of building our lives on the “rock of our Redeemer.” Thank you for your testimony and for your kind words about the blog.