“Dad,” I asked, “How do you know what’s true?” I was a young college student faced with new ideas, ideas that turned me inside out and upside down. Driving with my dad one day I told him about my classes, the things I was learning and the conflict I felt in my heart and mind.
Instead of answering my question directly he asked me one in return. “What do you know is true?” One by one I named the things that I had already sought to know for myself: God lives and loves me, Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was a prophet, the Book of Mormon is true and we have a living prophet. “Remember what you know, and don’t worry too much about the things you can’t explain.”
As we visited I felt the familiar peace of the spirit and suddenly everything was all right. I could learn and try out the new philosophies and ideas being presented every day without fear. There were things I knew. I had solid footing. As early as I could remember, I had been “taught of the Lord” and the result was great peace.
It’s this kind of peace that I want for my own children. In a world that changes rapidly I want them to have the peace of knowing the One who “changest not.” In a time when all things are relative and the value of tolerance is greater than the tolerance of values, I want their foundation on Christ to be solid. So “that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind,” instead of being dragged “down to the gulf of misery and endless wo,” they will find “peace like a river.”
When I think of children who possessed that kind of peace, I think of 2000 young men who left home to fight for the liberty of their fathers. They had never fought, but they didn’t fear death. I imagine they were armed for battle in the usual way, but the greatest weapon they carried was not in their hands, but in their hearts and minds. When Helaman asked if they would face their enemies, the Lamanites, they revealed to him their weapon. It was their faith in God and in their mothers’ words. “They had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them (Alma 56:47).” They didn’t doubt and when the battle was over, not one of them had fallen.
In subsequent battles the result was the same. While a thousand fell around them they were spared and they could only “justly ascribe it to the power of God, because of their exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe (Alma 57:26).” These young men had been “taught of the Lord” and it not only brought them peace. It delivered them.
Do our children have the advantages the stripling warriors had? Do they have mothers who teach them about God and His deliverance? When I think about questions like these it makes me pause and wonder because I don’t ever feel like I’m doing the job quite right. But when I look at this story again it gives me hope.
When the sons of Helaman rehearse to him what they’ve been taught they say, “We do not doubt our mothers knew it (Alma 56:48).” Of all the things they had learned this one was clear, their mother’s knew, their mother’s had faith in the things they were teaching. What does this mean for us as missionaries and teachers of our children? It means that we start with our own faith and we take it from there. When we are truly converted to Christ we will teach our children in such a way that they cannot doubt our faith.
A while ago I was sitting with baby Emma on my lap while I stripped grapes off the vine and into the juicer. She was content watching, reaching out every so often to try and grab the purple globes swinging so near. It was a peaceful moment and my mind wandered to Christ’s teachings about the vine. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me (John 15:4).”
