Hush Your Fears

Mosiah 23

21: Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith.
22: Nevertheless-whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.


Neal A. Maxwell said: “Faith … includes faith in God’s developmental purposes, ... Still, some of us have trouble when God’s tutoring is applied to us! We plead for exemption more than we do for sanctification.” (Ensign, May 1991, p. 90.)

Howard W. Hunter said: “Mormon surely knew that no pain we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially
when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God.” (Ensign, Nov. 1987, p. 60 as taken from Latter-day Commentary on the Book of Mormon compiled by K. Douglas Bassett, p. 316)

Notwithstanding their desires for righteousness and the covenant that they had made with the Lord, the people of Alma were sorely tried and tested. Such is the purpose of mortality. Faith and obedience do not excuse one from the vicissitudes of a lone and dreary world, do not preclude the constant buffetings of Satan and his hosts. DCBM 2:285.

The Lord’s people must be tried as by fire. It is great challenges that produce great people, and great difficulties that produce great faith.


Of the Savior – and, by extension, all who seek society with him – we are told, “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. We can hardly lay claim to any attribute of godliness unless we have been tried and tested on the matter. It is meaningless to say that someone is filled with love if he has never been in a situation that evokes hate; that he is courageous if he has never been in a situation that elicits fear; that he is generous if he has never been called upon to share; and so forth. It was an epic trial that merited for Abraham the title Father of the Faithful. There are no conquering heroes unless there are great battles to be fought. DCBM 2:285-86.

Neal A. Maxwell: Patience is not indifference. Actually, it is caring very much, but being willing, nevertheless, to submit both to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the “process of time.” Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than his. We read in Mosiah about how the Lord simultaneously tries the patience of his people even as he tries their faith (see Mosiah 23:21). One is not only to endure—but to endure well and gracefully those things which the
Lord “seeth fit to inflict upon [us]” (Mosiah 3:19), just as did a group of ancient American Saints who were beating unusual burdens but who submitted “cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord” (Mosiah 24:15). Sometimes that which we are doing is correct enough but simply needs to be persisted in—patiently—not for a minute or a moment but sometimes for years. Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe—rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. Too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising! So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we won’t be. Whereas faith and patience are companions, so are selfishness and impatience. Patience is, therefore, clearly not fatalistic, shoulder-shrugging resignation; it is accepting a divine rhythm to life; it is obedience prolonged. Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing! Ensign, Oct. 1980, 28-30)

We are tried and tested, but if we put our faith in God he will fulfill his promises to each of us and we will be happy.

27: But Alma went forth and stood among them, and exhorted them that they should not be frightened, but that they should remember the Lord their God and he would deliver them.
28: Therefore they hushed their fears, and began to cry unto the Lord...


Put your faith in God and he will deliver you. Faith and fear cannot exist simultaneously in the same place- Hush your fears. I need to remember this. I get all anxious about how things are going to turn out but I just need to have faith and hush my own fears.