The Lord Worketh in Many Ways

Alma 24 recounts the terrible story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies who were slain because they would not take up arms against their brethren.  After this event the Lamanites and Amalekites stopped trying to kill the people of Ammon and they “took their armies and went over into the borders of the land of Zarahemla, and fell upon the people who were in the land of Ammonihah and destroyed them” (Alma 25:1).  This was certainly a complex and trying time for the people of God.  A few years earlier in Ammonihah the wicked leaders of the city had rejected the teachings of Alma and Amulek and caused that the righteous wives and children of the believers should be “cast into the fire” (Alma 14:8).  Then we had this scene of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies being slaughtered by the Lamanites, and the two stories became connected as the perpetrators of one of these acts of genocide went and slaughtered the perpetrators of the other.  There was some good that came out of these terrible scenes, though, and the example of those people of Ammon who gave up their lives converted to the Lord more Lamanites than the number that were slain.  Mormon described the lesson from this in these words: “Thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people” (Alma 24:27).  

             Certainly one of the things that we learn from these stories is that the righteous will not always be physically spared.  Living a life of devoted discipleship does not mean we will necessarily be protected from the trials of mortality or that death will stay its hand.  I attended a beautiful funeral service for a young man, the brother of one of my good friends, who passed away suddenly last week. Here was a someon trying to live the gospel, serve others, and prepare for a mission, and his life was taken in an instant with no warning and still little explanation of what happened to him.  I certainly don’t understand the reasons for this terrible tragedy, and any kind of understanding can only come through the Spirit to them.  But I believe that we can trust “that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people.”  What good could come of such a seemingly senseless loss I don’t know, but surely for this family striving to live the gospel and putting their trust in the Lord, good will indeed come.
               Today the Christian world remembers the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ.  Without spiritual eyes, His suffering and crucifixion were a terrible tragedy with little lasting meaning.  On one occasion the Savior had alluded to His death in these words. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24).  For reasons we can list but not fully understand in mortality, it was “expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice” and Christ was it (Alma 34).  Christ’s suffering and death was tragic but also triumphant as it brought “forth much fruit” and blessed the world in uncountable ways.  In our own difficulties and struggles that seem out of line with the gospel’s promise of blessings to the faithful, we can only trust that “the Lord worketh in many ways” for our salvation, and that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).