Moroni's Promise

Angel Moroni, Jorge Cocco

We've been taught, and teach, that Moroni's Promise is the gateway into receiving a testimony of the restored gospel. It's at the core of who we are as a people: ask God, get an answer.

But that's not what Moroni's Promise says. Let's dig into it. 

I don't think anyone should ever attempt to teach Moroni's Promise without using verses 3-5 of Moroni 10. If you do, you're going to misunderstand the required steps. 

A crucial part of the process, as outlined in verse 3 is to "remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men," i.e. to contemplate the mercy God has for you. This is a prerequisite to receiving the witness Moroni is talking about. 

You can pray to know the Book of Mormon is true until the world ends. Applying what you read in The Book of Mormon to yourself and recognizing the love and mercy God has for you is essential to that process and receiving that answer. The Book of Mormon wasn't written for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It wasn't written for the human race in general. It was written for you, individually. This is the lens through which you need to read, interpret, and ponder its message. This is what Moroni is actually inviting you to do.

If you don't do that, you may not get the witness Moroni promised you. And if you need to refresh that witness, this is going to be crucial for you because you may have personal holy experiences in your past to reference here. Expressing gratitude for the presence God has already played in your life will be crucial to inviting God to return to your life. 

When I first encountered the Church, I was in a place of deep anger about the family I had been sent to Earth to live with. They had many problems and I encountered much abuse and neglect because of them. It didn't seem fair to me that other people got functional families with resources to take care of them, and I just didn't. I was in a place of profound mistrust with God because I deserved better, and the only one who seemed committed to making that happen was me all by myself. 

I've never had that thought without the memory of the times I prayed for my safety, and later on for the safety of my baby sister, during late night fights between my parents. It would be impossible for me to sleep as their domestic violence carried on deep into the night. I was afraid that their conflict s, as they went back and forth across my bedroom door, might spill into our room. I was afraid many times that my parents would kill each other one day.

I was taught to pray by my grandmother, so that's what I would do. I didn't have anywhere else to turn to for help. And from the time I was very young, I knew God was there. He could hear me. He reassured me through my own tears that I wasn't alone, that He was aware of me, and that I would be protected. The fights would usually end soon after that and I would finally be able to go back to sleep in peace.

That happened too many times for me to count throughout my young life. Those are my formative experiences with God. This is how I know God is real. This is why, no matter what happens, I will always be a believer. Before I really knew anything about God, I experienced his mercy, love, and protection in tangible ways I could feel and see. I felt the power of my prayers as they preserved the lives of those I love.

Another way of looking at mercy is unconditional love. How have you experienced God's unconditional love for you? These are the experiences Moronin invites you to contemplate. Then consider how The Book of Mormon speaks to and expands upon those mercies. Ponder those things and pray to know that THEY are true.

Some people do this instinctually, which is why the answer comes easily to them. Others need time to come fully into that answer. That's okay. My sincerest testimony I have of the Church is the healing I've been able to do here from all the painful experiences of my upbringing. That requires time and vulnerability that was deeply uncomfortable to me for many years, and often still is. I've found a friend in Jesus through all of that, which was aided by The Book of Mormon. That is how I know it's true. And that's just one example of many of his The Book of Mormon is inextricably connected to the mercies of God in my life.

I taught this as a missionary, but I didn't understand it as deeply as I do now. Back then, it was part of the checklist of how Moroni's Promise worked. Now I understand it's the core, the fertile ground in which this witness needs to be planted to grow. You can't receive the witness described without doing these steps. And if we read verses 4 and 5 only, we won't even recognize that those steps are there.

Without verse 3, Moroni's Promise is just an intellectual exercise totally divorced from our personal lives. It's a question about whether the Book of Mormon is true generally, rather than recognizing how it applies to you. Even if we got an answer that way, it wouldn't sustain us in lasting ways because the answer is in our heads instead of in our hearts. Sustainable spiritual growth requires both, which is why Moroni's Promise requires both.