There are storms all around us these days – natural disasters, health problems, unemployment, underemployment, disobedience, complacency, lack of faith – to name a few. Bishop Glenn L. Pace explained:
"The whole world seems to be in commotion. Today's news is filled with accounts of large-scale famine, civil unrest, and natural disasters. Even more devastating in the long run is the spiritually destructive hurricane of disobedience to God's commandments that is engulfing the world. This horrible storm is blowing the moral fiber out of the nations of the earth and leaving the land in moral desolation. Many people seem to be oblivious to this hurricane and have become so desensitized they don't even feel a breeze." Ensign, November 1992
Despite the calamities all around us, the Lord has commanded that we should neither be dismayed nor discouraged, for the Lord is on our side. Joshua 1:9. The Lord has also commanded that we, as members of His Church, should be “gathering together . . . as a defense, and for a refuge from the storm.” D&C 115:6. In the Book of Mormon, Helaman teaches that if we exercise faith in Christ, we will be able to withstand life's trials and the tempter's snares:
"Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." Helaman 5:12
Similarly, the great missionary Ammon promises that if we exercise faith and obedience in Christ, “we shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall we be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh we shall be gathered together in our place, that the storm cannot penetrate to us; yea, neither shall we be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry us. But behold, we are in the hand of the Lord . . . .” Alma 26:6-7.
As we exercise faith in Christ through being more obedient, having regular prayer and scripture study, magnifying our callings, holding family home evenings, and rendering service to those around us, the Lord will be with us and will fortify us against the myriad storms of this life. I so testify in Christ's name, Amen.
Brother Chris Payne
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