Day 51: Alma 5

The Great Check!

Alma 5 is all about a personal inventory to ourselves and to God. When one answers truthfully the questions posed by Alma, then progress can begin. We are all works in progress, so there is no shame in setting goals to be better. That first step is the biggest and far more reaching because so many do not even try...

“Remembering and counting our many blessings can humble us by reminding us of all the reasons we have to be thankful to God-not just today's reasons, but those relating to all our yesterdays…If we fail to stir remembrance of blessings received, the human tendency is to say, in effect, whether to one's God or to one's fellows, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ It is best to cultivate our ‘remembering’ capacity now and to be guided accordingly, since at judgment day we will have ‘perfect remembrance’ (Alma 5:18).” (Elder Neal A. Maxwell, "A Wonderful Flood of Light", p. 51)

Speaking of another principle, C. S. Lewis described the pride of comparison when he said: "Pride is essentially competitive. . . . Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. . . . It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Lewis called pride ‘the utmost evil’ and ‘the complete anti-God state of mind,’ because this kind of comparison leads men to enmity and oppression and every other kind of evil. This insightful Christian saw that every person should look up to God as ‘immeasurably superior’ to him or her. He continued: Unless you Know God as that--and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." (Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1960], pp. 109-11.)

Let us not be drawn off the straight and narrow path by our self righteousness. By giving to those in need, we become more rich in the Spirit of charity...the greatest of all!