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Sunday, June 23, 2019

How do you "wrestle with God in mighty prayer"? Alma 8:10

How do you "wrestle with God in mighty prayer"? Alma 8:10
Alma leaves Gideon and goes back to Zarahemla to rest for a while. Then he goes to Melek and had a lot of missionary success there. Then he went to Ammonihah, which was a different story. Nobody there would listen to him.
10 Nevertheless Alma labored much in the spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit upon the people who were in the city; that he would also grant that he might baptize them unto repentance.
I wanted to know what "wrestling with God in mighty prayer" meant, and if I could do it, then how?

ANSWER:

This metaphor for how one should approach God when asking him to grant the desires of your heart is interesting. Why the struggle? Where does that come from? If we are his children, doesn't God want to bless us? Why should we struggle?

I think the struggle comes in part from simply asking God. It is difficult to admit that there's no possible way for us to get something we long for besides asking him for it.

The struggle also comes in deciding to accept the answer. Maybe God will give us what we want, but at a terrible cost. Maybe God will not give us what we want. Or maybe God's answer is silence - which can usually be interpreted as, "I trust you, keep going forward."

It's also physically difficult to pray sometimes. I recently decided that, while I can't quite bring myself to do daily mindfulness exercises like meditation, I can certainly improve my prayers by making sure I'm in a quiet, secluded(ish) place, and try to remove my mind from the pressure of finishing soon. How I do this is by trying to really tell God my thoughts and feelings, and not just asking and thanking him for stuff. I have started to talk to God in this way because I know that it will benefit me greatly on many levels: this itself is a kind of meditation, and there are empirical health benefits (that I sorely need at this point in my life) in store. I also feel an improved relationship between me and God when I take the time to include him in more real ways. I often think about him, but sometimes it's hard to try to involve him more directly, especially because of the time and comfort factor. My knees get uncomfortable. It's sometimes better on a walk in my thinnest of thin strips of suburban woods. Or in a closet or something.


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