Wednesday, March 20, 2019

2 Nephi 7:6-7 -- On Faces like Flint

"I gave my back to the smiter, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed."
2 Nephi 7:6-7


These verses talk about physical and mental abuse such as getting hit or ridiculed, and on not running away or hiding from it, much like the admonition in Matthew 5:39: "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."  And sometimes those things are hard to hear, especially if we are in a situation where those things happen often.

To be absolutely clear, I don't think that God means in this verse or any other that we need to stay in a long-term abusive situation.  Later in the Book of Mormon we read "let us resist evil, and whatsoever evil we cannot resist with our words, yea, such as rebellions and dissensions, let us resist them with our swords, that we may retain our freedom" (Alma 61:14).  Clearly there are some times when we should resist evil, and others when we should be patient with it.  In the case where it encourages us to resist, they are talking about something that has been going on for a while and that threatens the freedom of their people.  Similarly, when something threatens our long-term well-being, God wants us to talk to him about it and do something about it, not just keep accepting it.

That said, I think the idea of setting our faces like flint is usually a really super good idea.  Sometimes in life we overreact to things, and "make a man an offender for a word" (Isaiah 29:21).  Even when we are reacting appropriately, often not reacting is the better idea in order to shut the behavior down.  Instead of getting upset at the various people who provoke us and responding in kind, not reacting and trusting that the Lord will help us is something that would likely make the world (and even our own sense of peace) better rather than worse. :) 

Today, for all the short-term wrongs we encounter, let's trust God to make things right instead of reacting negatively.  Let's endure the bumps on the sidewalk, the cars cutting us off, the not-so-subtle negative comparisons, the comments about our appearance or our preferences, and even the deeper, intentionally hurtful barbs from our loved ones.  Let's set our faces like flint, knowing that God's opinion is the one that matters, and that he cares about us and will help us, as we stick with him. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Total Pageviews