Day 136 God's Unique Deliverance in Trials of Faith

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from, thank you for joining me and know that I am cheering for your every success. Bondage, bondage, bondage. It seems like everybody at some point in the Mosiah chapters gets into bondage situations.

They get stuck, and today is no different. Welcome to day 136 on our 365. We're going to be reading today Mosiah 23, verses 17 through 39.

We're going to finish that chapter, and we're going to be in the middle of more bondage. Although this time it's not Limhi and his people; it's Alma and his people. Let's dive into the verse for the day and see what we can learn from it.

Now I'm going to let you know that the verse today is actually kind of a trio of verses, but we're only going to read one of them. But I want to make sure that you read—if you only read three of them today (you should read all of them, by the way)—but if you only read three of them, I want you to read 21, 22, and 23 inside of the reading assignment. Let's take a moment today.

There is a time in all of our lives where the Lord says, 'You know what? It's time to try your faith a little bit.' And that may look different to everyone, and that's okay, but we're going to have trials of faith. It doesn't mean that the Lord's gone and doesn't exist.

It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist anymore, right? It just means that it's a trial of faith. It's an opportunity for us to turn to him and see if we can work through it and put our faith in him.

And it was no different for Alma and his people. Now we're going to read verse 23 today and see what we get from it here. Verse 23 says, 'For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into bondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God; yea, even the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and of Jacob.' There's only one path out in this situation.

None could deliver them but the Lord their God. This one's always interesting to me because just a couple of chapters ago, we were reading about Limhi being delivered, and they got delivered a different way than Alma and his people got delivered from the Lamanites. And something that I think is really interesting in all of these times where people are escaping from the bondage of the Lamanites and the slavery situations and all those things, the Lord doesn't do it the same way every time.

He does it specifically tailored to the delivery that each one of us needs. And so if you're having a little bit of a trial by faith, lean into it and understand that you may not even know. Your neighbor may have the same trial of faith and find a different path through with the Lord than you're going to find in your trial of faith.

But I can promise this: the Lord does deliver. So even though Alma and his people are going to have a very similar experience in their bondage situation with the Lamanites, their escape is going to be tailored specifically to them. And it's going to happen when they show their faith to the Lord, and then the Lord delivers them, and nobody else can deliver them the way that the Lord can deliver them.

So, inside of your trials, when everybody's telling you, 'Oh, I had that before! Do this!' or 'Oh, you're going to be fine! Just do this!' What I want to encourage you to do is lean into the Lord and then lean into the understanding that he knows exactly how to get you out of the situation.

Friends, remember that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Like little tiny challenges and showing faith in getting through them. You got this. You can do this.

Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow. I hope you are too.