"And ye shall hear my words, for, for this intent have I come up upon the walls of this city, that ye might hear and know of the judgments of God which do await you because of your iniquities, and also that ye might know the conditions of repentance;"
Helaman 14:11
This is the prophet Samuel the Lamanite speaking to a city of Nephites. As we read the Book of Mormon we start to think of Nephites and Lamanites as the bad guys and the good guys, when it was definitely not that clear throughout the history of the people. In this case, the truth was almost entirely the opposite. Samuel was prevented from entering the city, so he had to get up on the wall instead to deliver the message that God had asked him to deliver.
I think sometimes in our own lives we get the truth mixed up. We think we know who the good guys and the bad guys are, but the truth is more complex than the tribes or teams or political parties that we use to mentally divide the world. Samuel was a man of God and yet he was shunned, and the people threw rocks and shot arrows at him to try to stop him from delivering a message from God and trying to help them. I think that we are in danger of doing the same sometimes.
Maybe today we could try to open our minds a little bit to those who seem strange or foreign to us for cultural, racial, religious, or economic reasons... or various other ways that we might determine who is and isn't in our own tribe. Instead of throwing our own symbolic rocks because the message is from someone outside our experience of the "good guys," let's listen and learn from one of those "others" or "outsiders" today, and look for the good. I think we will find it. Maybe it won't be a prophet, but if we stick with God, I think he is willing to show us how to learn from and love almost anyone. All we have to do is ask. :)
Helaman 14:11
This is the prophet Samuel the Lamanite speaking to a city of Nephites. As we read the Book of Mormon we start to think of Nephites and Lamanites as the bad guys and the good guys, when it was definitely not that clear throughout the history of the people. In this case, the truth was almost entirely the opposite. Samuel was prevented from entering the city, so he had to get up on the wall instead to deliver the message that God had asked him to deliver.
I think sometimes in our own lives we get the truth mixed up. We think we know who the good guys and the bad guys are, but the truth is more complex than the tribes or teams or political parties that we use to mentally divide the world. Samuel was a man of God and yet he was shunned, and the people threw rocks and shot arrows at him to try to stop him from delivering a message from God and trying to help them. I think that we are in danger of doing the same sometimes.
Maybe today we could try to open our minds a little bit to those who seem strange or foreign to us for cultural, racial, religious, or economic reasons... or various other ways that we might determine who is and isn't in our own tribe. Instead of throwing our own symbolic rocks because the message is from someone outside our experience of the "good guys," let's listen and learn from one of those "others" or "outsiders" today, and look for the good. I think we will find it. Maybe it won't be a prophet, but if we stick with God, I think he is willing to show us how to learn from and love almost anyone. All we have to do is ask. :)
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