“I Would That Ye Should Remember,” Liahona, Sept. 2023.
“I Would That Ye Should Remember”
Mosiah 5:12
Each of us has been given personalized reminders of Christ. Look to them and remember Him.
Detail from Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, by Heinrich Hofmann
As part of our mortal experience, we are all subject to not only a veil of forgetfulness but also a condition of forgetfulness. The veil of forgetfulness causes us to forget scenes and truths we came to know in our premortal state. Our condition of forgetfulness leads us to forget and stray from truths we have learned or relearned in this life. Unless we overcome our fallen state of forgetfulness, we will naturally become “swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord [our] God” (1 Nephi 17:45).
Reminders of Christ
With every commandment He gives, God promises to “prepare a way for [us] that [we] may accomplish the thing which he commandeth” (1 Nephi 3:7). That we might obey His commandment to remember, the Lord has prepared reminders.
Indeed, all things are created and made to bear record and remind us of Christ (see Moses 6:63; see also Alma 30:44). It is intended, for example, that we remember Him “when thru the woods and forest glades [we] wander, and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.”1 Stones can even cry out as a testimony and reminder of Jesus (see Luke 19:40). In fact, the entire earth, both audibly and visually, bears magnificent witness and offers stunning reminders of its Creator.
The seemingly random reminders in all creation are augmented by the more formal reminders we find in sacred ordinances. Abinadi taught that ancient Israel was given strict ordinances to perform in order “to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him” (Mosiah 13:30). Modern-day prophets have taught the same thing. President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) declared, “I suppose there would never be an apostate, there would never be a crime, if people remembered, really remembered, the things they had covenanted at the water’s edge or at the sacrament table and in the temple.”2
Christ’s Atonement is both universal and individual. So are His reminders. Thus, in addition to uniform ordinances offered to all, He gives us varying and personalized reminders of Him. For example, ordinary clay or mud is not likely to cause many people to remember Jesus or swell with emotion and gratitude for Him. Yet the man whose sight was restored when Jesus anointed his eyes with clay probably remembered Jesus fondly every time he looked at clay—mud! (see John 9:6–7). Nor is it likely that Naaman was ever able to view a river, especially the Jordan, without thinking of the Lord who healed him there (see 2 Kings 5:1–15). Each of us has been given one or more personalized reminders of Christ. Look to them and remember Him.
Bearing Record of Christ
Records and histories are additional things the Lord has caused to be prepared to help us obey His commandment to remember. The scriptures—records of God’s dealings with His children—talk often about bearing witness, or “bearing record,” of Him (see 2 Corinthians 8:3; 1 John 5:7; 1 Nephi 10:10; 12:7; Doctrine and Covenants 109:31; 112:4).
Sacred records, including personal journals, help us bear record. Profound moments with the Spirit are a gift that, in the moment, we believe we will never forget. But our condition of forgetfulness causes the vibrancy of even the most profound experiences to fade with time. A journal entry, a photograph, or a record can help us not only recall profound moments but also bring back the emotions and the Spirit we felt. No surprise, then, that the first commandment after the Church was organized in this dispensation was, “There shall be a record kept among you” (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1). Properly kept records enlarge our memory and can convince us of our errors and bring us to God (see Alma 37:8).
Ultimately, of course, we are able to bear record of truth because we have received a witness of truth from the Holy Ghost, who is “the record of heaven” (Moses 6:61). In this role, the Holy Ghost records truth in the “fleshy tables of [our] heart[s]” (2 Corinthians 3:3). He helps us remember Christ and everything He has taught us (see John 14:26).
The connection between Jesus, records, the Holy Ghost, and remembering is on display in Moroni 10:3–5. We are promised that if we read the Book of Mormon, a sacred record, in a spirit of remembrance and ask God in the name of Christ with a sincere heart, with real intent and faith in Christ, the Holy Ghost will manifest to us the truthfulness of the record. And if that particular record is true, then Jesus is the Christ.
Alma Arise, by Walter Rane
Remember to Be Redeemed
Remembering Jesus leads to redemption and salvation. Consider the role remembrance played in the redemption of young Alma. When the angel appeared to Alma, he delivered the command for Alma to “seek to destroy the church no more.” But even before issuing that edict, the angel declared, “Remember the captivity of thy fathers … and remember how great things [Christ] has done for them; for they were in bondage, and he … delivered them” (Mosiah 27:16; emphasis added).
The angel’s mandate to remember was not simply a wise directive with broad application. For Alma, it was a specific clue, a loving hint, for how he could survive the near-death experience he was about to have.
Twenty or so years later, Alma shared with his son Helaman, in dramatic detail, what he went through as he lay paralyzed and speechless for three days, “repenting nigh unto death” (Mosiah 27:28). After the angel departed, Alma remembered, all right; but all he could remember were his sins.
“I was racked with eternal torment,” Alma recalled. “… Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell” (Alma 36:12–13). The thought of standing before God filled Alma with such “inexpressible horror” that he thought to escape, not simply by dying but by becoming “extinct both soul and body” (Alma 36:14–15).
Here we should pause and understand: Alma was not simply paying some terrible three-day penalty that had been predetermined to be the proper consequence for his sins. No, he was on the front end—the first three days—of being “encircled about by the everlasting chains of death” (Alma 36:18; emphasis added).
Surely, he would have remained in this awful state beyond three days—indefinitely—had it not been for the fact that, mercifully, he somehow, from somewhere, remembered that his father had prophesied “concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.” Then he said:
“Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.
“And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more” (Alma 36:17–19).
Alma had followed the angel’s command to remember. He remembered Jesus. And just as Jesus had delivered Alma’s fathers from their captivity, He delivered Alma from his.
What tender mercy and mighty deliverance! What an astonishing change of heart and mind! Alma, who only moments earlier thought to escape God’s presence by becoming extinct, now envisioned God and His holy angels and “did long to be there” (Alma 36:22).
This miraculous transformation was activated by a simple remembrance. Alma’s experience gives literal meaning to the final words of King Benjamin’s final sermon: “And now, O man, remember, and perish not” (Mosiah 4:30).
He Remembers Us
As we strive to always remember Jesus, it is important to keep in mind that He always remembers us. He has etched us upon the palms of His hands (see Isaiah 49:16). Think about it—benevolent Jesus will not, cannot, forget us, yet He so easily and willingly forgets our sins that bruised Him so.
That is worth remembering.