War Chapters - Teamwork

Sometimes, when I don't know what to post about, I just start typing until something comes out. Thankfully, this isn't one of those days.  Other days, when I don't know what to post about, I think about our family scripture study, and I share a little tidbit from our most recent chapter. That'd probably work out pretty well for today. In fact, yeah, let's do that, and I'll save what I was about to share this morning for tomorrow.

I'll just send myself a quick Email to remind myself what to blog about next time. (Not that I check my Email before I blog. Too distracting.)  And, done! It'll be a good one, I promise. =) In the meantime...

Last night, our family read Helaman chapter one. In family prayer, just before reading the scriptures, I asked for us to be shown the lesson God would have us learn from that chapter.

At first, the moral of that chapter seemed to be 'everybody loses'. The king of the Nephites had died, and they needed a new king. Out of the king's many sons, three sought the throne: Pahoran, Pacumeni, and Paanchi. All the Nephites voted, and Pahoran was chosen to be the new king. Pacumeni was okay with that, but Paanchi wasn't. Paanchi started to raise up a rebellion against Pahoran, but his evil schemes were discovered, and he was put to death. The people who voted for Paanchi were angry, and they got an assassin to murder Pahoran. In the absence of his two contenders, Pacumeni was made king, but Coriantumr the Lamanite led an army into the capitol city and killed him. Coriantumr was then killed by the armies of the Nephites.

One rotten death after another.

But that was not God's message for us. The true message, or the message He truly meant for me, I didn't find until later that night in my personal study of the same chapter. See, after Coriantumr had taken the capitol city, he had it in his mind to cut his way through the land of the Nephites and get up into the Northern parts of the land. This was a surprise to Moronihah (the leader of the Nephite armies) because the Lamanites would normally attack on the Nephites' Southern border, so that's where most of the Nephite army was, but when Morronihah saw that Coriantumr was cutting his way through to the North parts of the land, he (Moronihah) sent a message to Lehi (another Nephite general) to cut him (Coriantumr) off. Coriantumr was blocked by Lehi. He tried to retreat South, but was blocked by Moronihah. Being completely surrounded by the Nephites and with their leader being killed in the battle against Moronihah, the Lamanites surrendered, and the conquest of Coriantumr was over.

Now, I'm sure we could learn something from the mistakes of Coriantumr. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Don't allow yourself to be surrounded by your enemies. Actually, that's a good one. No matter how strong and righteous you think you are, no matter how impervious to temptation you think you are, if your surround yourself with evil, it will overwhelm you. So don't do that. Keep the evil as far away from yourself as you can.

But the lesson I learned last night was a lesson on teamwork. Coriantumr's armies had gotten passed Moronihah's army, and they were marching so speedily, that Moronihah knew he wouldn't catch up in time to stop Coriantumr from reaching the land Northward. He needed help. He asked Lehi to block Coriantumr, and he did. But did that end the battle? No. Moronihah got a second chance to block Coriantumr, and this time, he succeeded. Coriantumr was slain in battle, and his army surrendered. But that could not have been possible if Lehi and Moronihah weren't working as a team.

In life, the enemy will sometimes slip passed us. Sometimes he catches us by surprise. Sometimes he simply overruns us. However he does it, he's going to get the better of us from time to time. What happens then? We'd have a hard time beating him when he has the upper hand, and even if we could beat him on our own, it wouldn't change the past. Resisting future temptations is good, but it doesn't erase past sins. For that, we need help.

As I wrote yesterday, God is pretty handy with those Plan B's of His. When we falter in our own personal war against sin, He'll be there for us to pick up the slack. Will He finish our war for us? No, but He will give us a second chance. He'll strengthen us, encourage us, put us face-to-face with the enemy, and tell us to stand firm. It won't be easy for us. It was never meant to be easy. But God will always make it possible. He'll do for us what we can't do for ourselves, but if there's something we can do for ourselves, He'll step back and give us the chance to do it.