Day 177 Faith and Calmness in the Face of Crisis

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'm cheering for your every success. My friends, the missionary tactics of Ammon are well known.

Today, let's take a little bit of a different perspective. Welcome to day 177 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together. You're going to read Alma chapter 17, verses 21 to 39.

We're going to finish that chapter, perhaps one of the most famous of the mission chapters through Alma here as Ammon goes and meets the king and becomes his servant. You're probably thinking that the verse today is Ammon choosing to be a servant of the king and that we should all be servants in our missionary work. That is not the verse today.

We're going to look at it from a little bit of a different perspective, but very, very common here. And then there's the other side of things that I kind of look at and have to chuckle because when it comes to missionary tactics, I absolutely see the servant offering and the service to the king. Although the, you know, slinging stones at people and chopping off of arms probably for today's modern world not the best of missionary tactics as we look at Ammon's example of missionary work, but still great lessons inside of here.

You're going to enjoy the reading today. Our verse today is Alma 17, verse 31. And what's happened is the flocks have been scattered and the servants are like, oh, man, we're totally dead.

Like literally the king is going to kill us. And then we have Ammon's response here. It says this: "And it came to pass that he flattered them by his words, saying, My brethren, be of good cheer, and let us go in search of the flocks, and we will gather them together, and bring them back unto the place of water.

And thus we will preserve the flocks unto the king, and he will not slay us." Now, I read this one and the first thing I see is Ammon smiling while all the flocks are running everywhere. And everyone's like, "No, we're going to die! The King's going to kill us!" And he's like, "Hey, guys, it's all right." And it makes me think of a time.

I think it was, I think it was John Maxwell that used this example, but he said, "Look, when you're building an inner circle of people, there are typically two kinds of people when it comes to fires and emergencies. And you need to be aware of who these people are." When there's a fire, when there's an emergency, there's one person that's carrying a bucket, and they have a bucket full of gasoline, and there's a fire in front of them, and they come over and they chuck the bucket. He sees an issue and he doesn't go, "Oh, my goodness, craziness has occurred, right?" That's what's happening with the servants.

They're like, "Freak out, freak out, we're dead, right?" Instead, Ammon's response is, "Hey, let's go gather up the sheep and we're going to be fine." And I think his calmness is grounded in his faith in the Lord. He knows he's going to be fine. He knows that everything around him is going to turn out all right.

That is a lesson we all can take out of Ammon's missionary response because it leads to his opportunity to talk to King Lamoni about what he did and what he chose to do. And then that leads to Lamoni's conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. My friends, do you carry buckets of water or do you carry buckets of gasoline around your life as you deal with the fires that come into your world?

That's all for today, my friends. Remember that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Keep it small, keep it simple and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow and I hope you are too.