Alma's Desires

Alma is almost finished preaching to the people of Ammonihah. In Alma 13:27, he tells them, And now, my brethren, I ^awish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great ^banxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not ^cprocrastinate the day of your repentance;
28 But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and ^awatch and pray continually, that ye may not be ^btempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be ^cled by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, ^dmeek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering;

29 ^aHaving faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the ^blove of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his ^crest.

Alma is filled with so much love for the people, he aches for them to repent and serve the Lord. But they have their agency and will choose not to repent.

He gives them steps which we can apply in our lives as well:
1) Hearken - Listen, hear, internalize, be aware. He says, "Hearken unto my words". We can't hearken unless we know his words, so first we have to study and listen. That includes scriptures, conference, our leaders, prayers - any of the many ways the Lord teaches us. We need to learn, listen, hearken.
2) Cast off your sins - In other words, repent.
3) Not procrastinate the day of your repentance - We can't wait around until we're done sinning. We never know when it may be too late. We need to repent NOW!
4) Humble yourselves - We need to let go of the glorified view we have of ourselves. Today's society encourages us to think we're powerful and great, deserving of anything we want. If we could just see ourselves as little children beside a loving father, we could be teachable and grateful.
5) Call on His holy name - We need to talk to our Father, really communicate with Him.
6) Watch and pray continually - This is kind of a continuation of the previous one. Not only should we pray, but we should do so continually. Our hearts should be centered on Him, and we should be thinking about Him and discussing our day with Him and thanking Him as we go along. The word "watch" means to look, observe, pay attention. It means to stay alert and be on guard. We need to be alert and on guard against evil and Satan. We need to pay attention to promptings that come. We need to beware of laziness and complacency in keeping the commandments.

For me, the rest of this scripture selection constitutes a promise for obeying the commandments just given, so I'll discuss those in the next post.