Building Upon The Rock

This week, in my Book of Mormon class, we dissected one of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon, found in Helaman 5:12. It is a verse that we hear and repeat often while growing up in the church, a scripture mastery verse that has a lot of power. In many of the verses in Chapter 5, Nephi is remembering the words which his father, Helaman, told to him and his brethren. That is what is happening in verse 12, a very powerful bit of counsel and advice:

12 And now, my sons, 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.

As I mentioned, this is a verse that we hear repeated often, at least in parts. There are a few things that stood out to me this time, though, that I hadn't noticed before. The phrase "that when the devil shall send forth..." is interesting because there is another way that it could've been stated but wasn't which is "if the devil shall send forth..." Why wasn't it stated like that? Well, it shows us that the devil WILL send forth storms and misery, there is no question about it. But, in response, if we are built upon Christ as our rock, "(we) cannot fall." It doesn't say that "(we) might not fall." These two observations go hand in hand, showing us the laws that work in our mortal lives: Satan will always try to deceive us, Christ will always protect us if we build upon him.

Reading this verse again helped me to reflect on where I am building my foundation and what I am doing to make sure I build upon Christ, our rock and Redeemer. I hope that it does the same for you and that we can all avoid the "hail and...mighty storm(s)" from the adversary.