War Chapters - In That Selfsame Hour

And they began to stand against the Lamanites with power; and in that selfsame hour that they cried unto the Lord for their freedom, the Lamanites began to flee before them; and they fled even to the waters of Sidon.
Alma 43: 50

This verse refers to the near-immediate result of the Nephites' prayer. I'm not sure if this is a direct cause and effect, with the Lamanites fleeing because the Nephites prayed, or if it was more indirect, with the Lamanites fleeing because the Nephites were fighting more boldly because they prayed, but either way, the prayer of the Nephites was the catalyst,  and the resulting retreat occurred rather quickly.

So what could this represent in our times, relating this to a spiritual battle? At first, I thought I would use this verse to show that God sometimes blesses us as soon as we pray for His help, like He was anxiously waiting for us to say the word so He could come in with some divine intervention. But that's not always the case. Sometimes, we pray for help or some other blessing, and don't get it until long after we pray, if we get it at all. God is not a vending machine. We can't just say "I'd like such and such a blessing," and expect to get it right away.

But perhaps we can expect the blessing to come precisely when we need it (if we even need it at all). In this case, the Nephites were in the act of falling before the Lamanites, so they needed the blessing, pronto. Maybe that's why God blessed them so quickly in this case. Also, personal righteousness may play a role in God's response time in coming to our aid. How often in the scriptures is God "slow to hear [the cries of the wicked] because of their wickedness"? Seems to happen a lot toward the end of the Book of Mormon. Perhaps the inverse is also true; that a very righteous person often gets help right away.

Then again, that's not true either. Sometimes, God lets good people suffer through temporary trials for their eternal benefit, even if they pray for the burdens to be removed and are worthy of that blessing. But does the same thing apply for spiritual battles? If a righteous person is facing strong temptation and pray for help resisting it, aren't they likely to get it, and quickly? Perhaps. Perhaps not. With Satan being as aggressive as he is, a person cannot become righteous by accident. They had to fight for it, and in fighting for righteousness, they became strong. Perhaps a righteous person may pray for help resisting a strong temptation, only to find that they were strong enough not to need the help. (Always pray anyway, no matter how strong you think you are, just in case!) And perhaps facing this particular temptation without the aid of heavenly assistance is exactly what this righteous person needed to help him gain the strength to resist stronger temptations later down the road.

So, what gives? If God doesn't always help us when we ask Him to, when we need Him to, even when we're trying to be righteous, why do we pray for help at all, and what are we supposed to learn from this verse? First question first. We pray because God answers prayers. He answers them in His own way and in His own time, but He always answers them. Sometimes we really do need the blessing right away, and that's when God supplies it. Sometimes, He let's us try to work things out ourselves for a while. All according to His infinite wisdom. I bet we'll understand His reasoning later down the road, and then we'll have to admit that He made the right call on whether to help us immediately or not.

Second question: what are we supposed to get out of this verse? Well, what did you get out of this blog post? If you have a good answer to that question, maybe that's what you were meant to learn from Alma 43:50. But in case nothing has really stuck out to you so far, I have another insight from this verse that I can share. Satan does not have a backbone.

I mean that literally, physically, as well as spiritually. Satan does not have a backbone, or any other body part, because he does not have a body. We've been told that "all beings who have bodies have power over those who have not." That fact alone makes us stronger than Satan in a large number of ways. If we stand up to him... How did that verse go? If we "stand against the [devil] with power," the devil will flee before us, often in that selfsame hour.

See, Satan wants to have it easy. He tries to weaken us with subtlety because he knows that he doesn't have the strength or the courage to take us head-on. Now, knowing that, we can either sit here and allow ourselves to be subjected to Satan's weakening influence, whether we know he's there or not (he can be very subtle), or we can take the fight to him. When we're facing temptation, we can fight it. We can tell that spineless serpent that he's not welcome anywhere near us. We can drive him away. He'll come back later, of course. He's relentless. But he's also weak. Weaker than we are, anyway. When we really put our backs into it, we can force him to leave us alone.

And when we're not facing any obvious temptation, we can shore up our defenses by keeping the commandments and strengthening our testimonies. Anything that attracts the spirit works like bug spray against the devil. Keep a hymn in your heart and a prayer on your lips and more often than not, Satan won't be able to touch you. I've found that he attacks our minds before he strikes anywhere else (at least, in my case, he does), so we can repel him pretty effectively by forcing him out of our minds. President Packer taught that the mind can only hold one active thought at a time. As long as that thought is a hymn or a scripture, it won't be a temptation. Maybe God sometimes doesn't answer our prayers to fight off a temptation because He knows that we already know how to do it ourselves. But I promised that if you pray for God's help and really fight against the temptation as hard as you know how, it won't defeat you. With God's help or without it, you will be able to drive the temptation away.