How do you pray when you’re angry?
Moses had taken enormous risks to free his people, including repeatedly confronting Pharaoh. At Mount Sinai, he had led them through three days of preparation to meet God. When people asked him to mediate for them, he had ascended the mountain, fasting forty days and forty nights to receive the law. But when he returned, his people were worshipping a golden calf.
His “anger waxed hot.” He broke the stone tablets containing the law. He commanded them to grind the calf into powder, mix it with water, and drink it (Exodus 32:19-20). Then he ascended the mountain to fast again and pray for them.
Forty years later, in his farewell sermon to a new generation, he recounted that prayer:
O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
Deuteronomy 9:26-29
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin. …
They are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.
Don’t focus on their stubbornness, their wickedness, or their sin, Moses pleads. He’s angry, and he knows that God is angry too (Deuteronomy 9:19). But he wants to look past what they have done and remember the bigger context: God’s covenant with their ancestors, God’s miraculous intervention in freeing them from slavery, and their identity as God’s chosen people.
The Book of Mormon prophet Alma makes a similar plea. After detailing the heart-wrenching wickedness of the Zoramites, Alma says:
Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.
Alma 31:35
Like Moses, Alma asks God to look past the Zoramites’ wickedness and to remember their eternal value. Of course God doesn’t need the reminder, but perhaps Alma and his companions do. The prayer not only represents a plea to God but also a realignment of Alma’s response to the behavior he has just seen.
Today, I will pray with the grace and kindness of Alma and Moses. When I see troubling behavior, I will strive to also see a child of God, of infinite worth, who needs my advocacy, love and patience. I will use my prayer to align my heart with God’s constant love for His children.
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