Three Book of Mormon Challenges: Challenge 2

Elder Richards' second Book of Mormon challenge is based on Alma 32, where Alma teaches that faith is like a seed. Here is the challenge:

2. "Discover specifically what the word, or seed, is and plant it in your heart. You will have to go to Alma, chapter 33 to find it."

Alma 33 begins with a question from the people Alma has been teaching. They ask what they should believe in (one god or many) and how to plant the word.

Alma answers by recounting the teachings of prophets who talk about worship and prayer (how to plant the word) and who also testify of Christ. The third of the prophets he quotes from is Moses:

Behold, [Christ] was spoken of by Moses; yea, and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness, that whosoever would look upon it might live. And many did look and live. But few understood the meaning of those things, and this because of the hardness of their hearts. But there were many who were so hardened that they would not look, therefore they perished. Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them. O my brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief, and be slothful, that ye would not cast about your eyes, that ye might perish? [Alma 33:19-21]

I love that symbol: a brazen serpent on a pole, held up for all to see and endowed with healing power. Those who would look would be healed. It seems so simple. Sometimes the gospel does not seem so simple, and the help of the Savior may seem more distant and not so readily available. But at its basic level, it is. If we will look to Christ, if we will place our focus, our trust, our hope, our faith in him, we can also be healed. As we come to Him, he reaches our reaching and blesses us with the comfort and healing of his Spirit. And that is how we plant the seed. We desire to believe in Christ, we look to Him, we have hope in him, and the seed of faith grows and bears fruit, "which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst" (Alma 32:42).

Alma charges the people he taught--and us--to plant the seed of faith in Christ:

Cast about your eyes and begin to believe in the Son of God, that he will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins; and that he shall rise again from the dead, which shall bring to pass the resurrection, that all men shall stand before him, to be judged at the last and judgment day, according to their works. And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. [Alma 33:22-23]