Book of Mormon Commentary CofC - Odessa, Missouri Community ...

Book of Mormon Commentary
2 Nephi Chapter 14
14:11 John Bunyan (in Pilgrim's Progress) said, "Prayer will keep a man from sinning, or sin will
keep a man from praying." Some people stop praying in their adolescence, just when they need it
most.
Benjamin Franklin advised, "Work as if you were to live one hundred years; pray as if you were to
die tomorrow." It has often been observed that "the family that prays together stays together." The
adversary of men's souls is always trying to destroy man's faith in the efficacy of prayer. "Why
pray when nothing ever happens?" says the evil spirit Shakespeare's Hamlet has the king
declaring, "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below."
James gave some sobering counsel, "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth
is like a wave of the sea ...Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord” (Jas.
1:6, 7).
2 Ne 14:12 But behold I say unto you, that ye must pray always, and not faint: that ye must not perform
anything unto the Lord, save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he
will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.
14:12 Anything worth doing is worth praying about. It does not impoverish God to give, but it
does cause us to think through some of our problems and fancies to submit them to God in prayer.
A sister once said in all seriousness, "I never bother the Lord with all my little problems; but when
I get up against a stone wall, I go down on my knees, and he usually helps me." If she would
commit all her ways to him, there might not be as many stone walls to run up against.