Plant the Word

A beloved primary song contains these lyrics: “Faith is knowing the sun will rise, lighting each new day. Faith is knowing the Lord will hear my prayers each time I pray. Faith is like a little seed: If planted, it will grow. Faith is a swelling within my heart. When I do right, I know.” One of the scriptures mentioned as a reference is Alma 32, which speaks of faith and seeds and planting and swelling. I certainly have no problem with the message of this song, but I think it is important to note when reading this chapter of the Book of Mormon that it is not exactly faith that is planted. Verse 28 reads this way: “Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.” It is the word that is planted; that is what we try in our hearts, that is what we are to nourish, and then as we do, this will “increase [our] faith.” The key to developing faith always starts with the word of God. This is what Paul declared: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Faith is grown as we hear and internalize the word of God. Of course we must cultivate our faith and help it grow just like a seed, and we do that by planting in our hearts His word.

               The challenges of today are increasingly complex and difficult for us to navigate, particularly as the world turns against the standards of the Lord. We are surely seeing the fulfillment of Lehi’s vision where many who have tasted of the fruit afterwards are “ashamed, because of those scoffing at them” and fall away “into forbidden paths” and are lost. How do we protect ourselves from taking such a course? The key is in the same vision: those who did not fall away were “continually holding fast to the rod of iron” (1 Nephi 8:28-30). Nephi later taught us what is encapsulated in another primary song when his brothers asked, “What meaneth the rod of iron which our father saw?” He replied that “it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction” (1 Nephi 15:24). If we don’t want to perish spiritually, we must continually hold fast to the word of God and not let go when the world mocks us. When Jesus warned His disciples of the events of the last days, he warned of wars, “famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” He also prophesied that “iniquity shall abound, and the love of men shall wax cold.” But if we “shall not be overcome” then we can be saved— but how do we not be overcome? The answer is in a later verse: “And whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived” (JSM 1:29-30, 37). Again the key is to hold fast to the word of God, treasuring it in our hearts continually, and then we will not be deceived. I love Alma’s invitation to do just that later in his words to the Zoramites: “But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof” (Alma 32:41-42). With diligence, faith, and patience in treasuring up the words of the scriptures and living prophets every day, we will be protected from the fiery darts of the adversary and enjoy the fruit of the tree forever.