Build A Fortress

This part of the answer came during a Sunday afternoon Relief Society lesson, and it felt like it was the first step for me.

We were discussing a talk given by Ronald A. Rasband during the April 2019 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called “Build a Fortress of Spirituality and Protection.” As part of the discussion, we reviewed portions of Alma 48 in the Book of Mormon. Verse 8:

Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all around about the land.

Ok, so first, he’d been strengthening the armies. That probably means that he was having them workout and practice combat moves and such. How does that apply to our spiritual protection, or spiritual fortress?

Strengthen Our Testimonies

My best guess is that it means that we need to strengthen our testimonies. There are lots of different ways for us to do that, but that’s not what this post is about, so we’ll just add this to the list of things we need to do to Build a Fortress.

Build Walls of Virtue, Integrity, and Honesty

The next thing Moroni did in verse 8 was to have the Nephites make big piles of dirt and stone walls to enclose the armies and the people. They built walls to keep out the riffraff. How does that apply to us? Are we supposed to build fences and put bars on all of our windows and not allow anyone who isn’t like us into our homes?

No.

We need to keep the influence of the adversary out of our homes by building walls of virtue, integrity, and honesty around us. As we are honest with others and as we strive to live lives of purity, the walls we build around our testimonies become stronger and more durable. It becomes more and more difficult for the devil to break through or climb over those walls.

Be Obedient

Rasband gives us a few other things we can do to help make our fortresses even stronger. The first suggestion he gives us is to be obedient. He gives the example of the sons of Lehi in the Book of Mormon. This, in no way, suggests that we should follow anyone blindly. We should always ask questions and seek the truth. Once the truth has been made clear, that’s the direction we go – those are the people and principles that we follow.

Trust God

The next suggestion is to trust the Lord. He quotes Joshua 1:9: 

“Be strong and of … good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

Joshua trusted in God to help him finish the wandering of the Israelites.

Stand for the Truth

Just because the majority thinks it’s true, doesn’t mean it is. Remember when people used to think the earth was flat? Everybody did. That didn’t make it the truth. If we pay attention to our conscience and then have courage, we can stand for what’s true, whether or not it’s popular.

Can we be as strong as Abinadi?

Make and Renew Covenants with God

This is potentially a fairly new concept to some. We believe that making and keeping covenants with God helps us to become more like Him and it helps to give us direction in a world that seems to see things with a more “every man for himself” mentality. The covenants that we make help us to remember what the purpose of life really is – we’re here to learn and to grow and to become more Christlike in all that we do.

Build a Fortress

1. Strengthen our testimonies
2. Build walls of virtue, integrity, and honesty
3. Be obedient
4. Trust God
5. Stand for truth
6. Make and renew covenants with God

But what does this have to do with teaching my daughter not to scream in my face?

Well, it gives me a list of things to teach her what TO do, instead of a list of things to teach her NOT to do. And it give me a list of things I need to work on in myself.