2 Nephi 7:5-7 -- On Trusting in God's Help

"The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
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 7:5-7


The conviction here that "the Lord God will help me" seems to be the reason that the narrator can endure the intentions of the smiter and the spitter, and yet remain outwardly unaffected, willing to suffer temporarily because of that trust in eventual deliverance.

I feel like our trust in God is massively important to our perspectives, and thus how we deal with everything. If we don't feel like God (or anyone else) is there to save and support us, we're much more likely to become bitter and defensive or depressed and resigned. But if we *do* trust God to help us, then everything just becomes part of the middle of the adventure story... yeah, the hero might be facing a giant, or a famine, or a flood, but with God we know all of those things can be overcome or survived, and the happy ending will eventually come.

Today, let's work on really believing that God will help us... that we don't have to go through anything alone or unsupported as long as we have the Spirit in our lives--and even when we have strayed off the path, if our intention is to get back on it, he will help us with that too, so we're still golden. (We just can't ask him to help us in leaving him or in doing evil, because that just isn't going to happen. He loves us too much to ever help us destroy ourselves.) Let's work to make sure we are on God's path, and trust that his help will always be there... and as we have that assurance, let's make sure we are adjusting our behaviors appropriately, and remembering that it is God's approval and his measures of success that we are working towards. Let's set our faces as flints as well, and show love to others, even when they behave badly, so that we can learn to trust in God and not "the arm of flesh" for our deliverance.