Uninhibited Joy

What’s holding you back from feeling pure joy?

When Ammon and his brothers were reunited with their friend Alma after fourteen years of missionary service, all five were overjoyed to see each other. However, Ammon experienced a particularly overwhelming surge of joy, “even to the exhausting of his strength,” and he fell to the ground, just as he had done when King Lamoni was converted. Mormon marveled at this intensity of emotion:

Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness.

Alma 27:18

Mormon quickly clarified that the others also felt great joy, “but behold their joy was not that to exceed their strength” (Alma 27:19). Ammon felt something uniquely powerful that day, and I can’t help but connect that experience with the following dialogue with his brother in the prior chapter:

• Ammon: “How great reason have we to rejoice…for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God!” (Alma 26:1, 3).
• Aaron: “Ammon, I fear that thy joy doth carry thee away unto boasting” (Alma 26:10).
• Ammon: “I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God” (Alma 26:11).

Aaron was understandably cautious about Ammon’s exuberance. We don’t want to be happy at someone else’s expense, and we don’t want our gratitude to morph into arrogance. But as Ammon pointed out, this gratitude and joy was good, and to restrain it would have been to limit his devotion to God. “Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord?” he asked. “I cannot say the smallest part which I feel” (Alma 26:16).

When Alma later described his reaction to his friends’ experience, he used language reminiscent of Ammon’s extraordinary experience at their reunion:

When I think of the success of these my brethren my soul is carried away, even to the separation of it from the body, as it were, so great is my joy.

Alma 29:16

Of course we need to govern and train our emotions. But channeling them is not the same as stifling them! We need to restrain some of them some of the time, but some emotions are meant to be felt fully, without reservations or bashfulness.

After the prophet Jacob quoted the exuberant admonition of Isaiah, “Feast upon that which perisheth not…and let your soul delight in fatness,” he added his own invitation: “Let your hearts rejoice” (2 Nephi 9:51-52).

The Book of Mormon frequently warns us against hardening our hearts, or in other words suppressing important emotions. Obviously, this can happen in large, catastrophic ways, such as rejecting the message of a prophet. But it can also happen in more subtle ways, such as letting guilt or shame impair our natural joy and gratitude at God’s marvelous blessings in our lives and in the lives of those we love.

As Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf recently reminded us, “Joy is the very purpose of God’s plan for His children. It’s what you were created for—’that [you] might have joy’! You were built for this!” (“A Higher Joy,” General Conference, April 2024).

Today, I will let myself experience pure joy. Like Ammon, I will allow my heart to rejoice in my God.