The Stripling Warriors - Paladins of Liberty

I love the army of Helaman. I recently got to Alma 53 in my personal scripture study, and that's the chapter that introduces them. Something I already knew about them is that they hadn't taken the oath their fathers took (that they would refuse to shed blood, even at the cost of their lives). This allowed the stripling warriors to fight for their liberty, but what I had forgotten about them - and was recently reminded - was that they took a new oath to do so.

And they entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites, yea, to protect the land unto the laying down of their lives; yea, even they covenanted that they never would give up their liberty, but they would fight in all cases to protect the Nephites and themselves from bondage.
Alma 53: 17

This, I believe, may be the same kind of covenant we all should take to fight for our liberty from the power of the adversary and from the bondage of sin. I've learned that Satan cannot take our freedom of choice from us unless we give it to him. As long as we are fighting for our freedom, we may retain it, and that's what the army of Helaman pledged to do: "They covenanted that they never would give up their liberty, but they would fight in all cases to protect the Nephites and themselves from bondage."

Sometimes we forget that the war in heaven, the war that was fought over peoples' agency, is still going on today. Satan is still fighting for control over us, and to make the battle harder now than it was then, we now have the Natural Man fighting for control over us as well. In order to be able to make good choices, we need to battle these unseen foes for our right to control ourselves. We need to actively choose to exercise and protect our self-control, or we may find ourselves losing it. If we choose not to fight for self-control, but take the path of least resistance instead, we become easy prey to temptation and can form bad habits that will be difficult to break.

I know that I, personally, would like to increase my will-power. Those with a great deal of will-power often do great things. I want to do great things, too. Self-control is a powerful force and it's certainly worth fighting for, which is fortunate because we need to fight for it in order to retain it. I want to follow the example of the stripling warriors and "fight in all cases to protect [myself] from bondage."