Removing the Thorns

The apostle Paul testified of a thorn in his flesh—a weakness that he struggled with. Three times, he sought help from the Lord that it might depart from him. However, after great effort, he learned that through enduring and triumph over weakness, he drew nearer to Christ. In his own words he exclaims, “I take pleasure in... distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Corinthians 12)

Each of us struggles with our own thorns of weakness.

As I study renowned persons of history, both within and without the church, there is one common theme: people often lay down at night with a reoccurring regret. “I wish I hadn’t… (insert your struggle here: gossip, tell a lie, lose my temper, drink that drink, smoke that cigarette, give into lust, abuse that prescription, steal, gamble…) again today. Everyone faces temptation, and everyone gives in. And after reliving the weak moment in the mind’s eye, we promise ourselves to never do it again. Yet, on the morrow, we do it anyways.

What is to be done?

At the end of one day, after giving myself a guarantee that tomorrow would be different, would be better, that I had learned my lesson--because I had failed again, I turned to the scriptures.

At a glance, my eyes fell upon a clumping of words in Alma chapter 33, “Do ye believe those scriptures which have been written by them of old?” Although I recognized this simple question, I let my mind wander for an answer.

Profound feelings rose.

“Yes,” I affirmed, “I do believe.” I continued to read Alma’s teachings about Christ.

One of Alma’s messages referred to an Old Testament story from the book of Numbers. Moses and the children of Israel had left Egypt and wandered their way through the wilderness. When they traveled close to Edom, Moses decided to circumvent the area and walk a longer route to the Promised Land. In response, his followers groaned.

“Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”

“Where is the bread?”

“Where is the water?”

Not only were the people disgusted with Moses, they loathed their daily Manna and echoed verbal complaints against God. Numbers 21:6 reveals what happened next. “And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.”

Then the people had a change of heart. They went to Moses and asked him to pray to the Lord for relief.  

Verse 7 says, “And Moses prayed for the people.”

The scriptures continue, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”

To this story, Alma added his own testimony in chapter 33, “But few understood the meaning of those things, and this because of the hardness of their hearts. But there were many who were so hardened that they would not look, therefore they perished. Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them. O my brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief, and be slothful, that ye would not cast about your eyes, that ye might perish?”

While wondering why some of the people refused to do something as simple as look upon the brazen serpent to be healed, I began to pray. I told the Lord that if I had been there, I would have looked. Then I remembered how frustrated I felt as I stumbled with my own weaknesses. Wasn’t there something, I wondered, that I could look upon and be cured of my ailing ways?

A quote that I had read recently came to mind:  In 1986 October General Conference, President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “There is a power in the Book of Mormon which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path. The scriptures are called ‘the words of life’, and nowhere is that more true than it is of the Book of Mormon. When you begin to hunger and thirst after those words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance.”

After rehearsing the quote in my mind, the Spirit spoke to me. “Looking upon a page or two of scripture every day is as healing to the soul today as looking upon the brazen serpent was to the body in Moses’ day.”

That was it!

I had been so bold to say that I would have looked upon the serpent, had I been offered an opportunity, yet I wasn’t taking advantage of the power within the Book of Mormon that was right before me every day. A variation of Alma’s question came to me. “O my brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes--UPON THE SCRIPTURES--that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly?”

Once I understood this, the answer to my original question became clear. If I wanted to overcome the thorn in my side, and let the grace of Christ turn my weak things into strong, I could never let a day pass without “looking upon” the scriptures.

Though an apple a day may keep the doctor away, a page or two of scripture cures all.

Like Nephi taught, daily study will allow us to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.”

“Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”