Retreating to Mulek

Out of the following four items, which is both the lowest priority and the action I've been taking for the last hour or so? Is it A) Blogging, B) Studying the Scriptures, C) Sleeping, or D) Reading Scientific Explanations of Hypothetical (and Usually Cataclysmic) Situations?

Clearly, humans are not the wisest of creatures. I should be sleeping right now. I should have blogged hours ago. I should wrap up this blog post, quickly read a scripture or two, and then go to bed. Actually, maybe I change the order of a pair of those.

We've gotten to the war chapters in our family scripture study, which is good news for me because I tend to see a lot of good strategies in these chapters. Sometimes, the strategies detail what Satan tries to do against us, and sometimes, they explain what we can do to counter him. For the chapter we read tonight, Alma 52, I can't tell clearly whose strategy we're looking at.

In Alma 52, Captain Moroni has Teancum and his men decoy an army of the Lamanites out of the city of Mulek, a stronghold they had taken, and lead them on a wild goose chase toward the Nephite city, Bountiful, where Lehi and his army were secretly waiting. When the Lamanite army saw a fresh and strong army of the Nephites, they started to retreat, but were blocked by Moroni and his army, who had followed them all that way. With the Lamanites outwitted into leaving their stronghold and allowing themselves to become surrounded, they were easily defeated.

Of course, I could use this to illustrate the importance of not leaving your stronghold (not lowering your standards, not leaving the church, etc.) no matter what opportunities present themselves, but that'd be too easy. Besides, while skimming through the chapter, I found something else.

At the start of the chapter, this same Lamanitish army woke up to discover that their king and commander, Amalickiah, had been assassinated, and that Teancum and his men were ready to attack them. Rather than fighting, the Lamanites retreated to their stronghold in Mulek, where they might have been safe, had they stayed.

In life, sometimes we face hardships and challenges we didn't expect to face, and may well be too much for us to handle. In those times, we may do well to fall back onto something solid, something we can depend on, something like the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like a stronghold, the Gospel and our personal testimonies of God's existence and His love for us can give us the strength we need to carry on through our trials. My faith in the existence, omnipotence, and compassion of God helped me see past a particularly difficult experience that I once had, and it gave me hope that everything would work out, which, according to God's wisdom, it always will.

Unfortunately, God's wisdom isn't the only controlling factor in our lives. There's also our foolishness to consider. God provided us with a stronghold, but we sometimes allow ourselves to be tricked into leaving it. We sometimes abandon the safety of keeping the commandments, or neglect the protection of doing the daily and weekly things that maintain our faith. Sometimes, we forget the core principles of the gospel, and when we do, we frequently find ourselves facing tougher challenges than we can handle.

Of course, as soon as we find ourselves facing unexpected difficulties, we should return to our places of strength, but by the time the challenges arise, we may already be too late. It was too late for the Lamanites to return to Mulek when they saw the army of Lehi because the army of Moroni had shut off their way of retreat. Rather, we should return to our strongholds as soon as we realize we've left them. We should start praying and studying the scriptures regularly and fervently as soon as we realize we've stopped. We shouldn't wait to be surrounded by our enemies before we decide that we'd rather be surrounded by the walls of our forts.

Then again, I'm not sure it can ever really be said that it's "too late" for us to repent and to turn onto Christ. His arms of mercy are always open, and while it's true that we should never leave the safety of His Gospel, it's equally true that we frequently do, and that what's important then is that we return to Him as soon as possible. We will get coaxed out of our strongholds from time to time, but when we do, we should return to them as soon as we can, and I believe that if we always try to return to the gospel as soon as we learn that we've strayed from it, that God will always make it possible for us to do so. We can always retreat to Mulek, even though it's infinitely better that we never leave it.