Daily Scripture: Continue in a Straight Course

I have been following along with the @BofM365 account on Instagram, where they post a set of scriptures to read everyday, and if you keep up with the schedule weepy will finish by the end of the year. They also include a question, that people can comment on, and there is always a lot of great insights shared. Today's reading is Alma chapter 56:18-40. The question they asked was: Why wouldn’t either army turn to the right or to the left? How could this be a metaphor for staying on the “strait and narrow path"?

First a little background. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Nephite's and Lamanities are still at war. The Lamanities had overtaken a lot of the Nephite cities and they wanted to take them back. The army of Antis has been fighting, trying to defend their city, and were weary, when along came the army of Helaman, with his 2,000 sons (the young sons of the people of Ammon, who had covenanted not to fight). They continue to receive more provisions and are strengthened. They Denise a plan to lead some of the Lamanities away from a city they had captured and gain it back. Here the sons of Helaman are basically running away from the Lamanities, leading them into the wilderness. It says that neither army dared to turn to one side or the other for fear they would be overtaken by the other. The army of Antipus is in the rear, to fight the Lamanities on the other side, to help protect the sons of Helaman. They ran a long time, I believe days, before the army of Antipus caught up to the Lamanities, and the sons of Helaman turned around to help them.

My comment was:
We have been told to focus our lives on Christ. To always remember Him, or always look to Him as it were. We tend to go in the direction we are looking, so if we are looking straight ahead at Christ we will go straight. If we turn to one side or another, looking away from Christ, getting distracted by other things, that is when we face the danger of being caught in Satan's snares, or in being overcome by the temptations of the devil, and being spiritually destroyed. Had the sons of Helaman turned to either side, they feared they would be overtaken by the Lamanities and killed, so they kept running forward. It wasn't until they had the help of the army of Antipus that they turned and fought the Lamanities. Sometimes we do have to fight our trials, but if we wait until we have the help of others (our Bishop and leaders, and the Lord, the help of prayer, the scriptures and the temple, etc.) then we can fight them and overcome them without being injured. We cannot do it alone. But we can avoid a lot of the wars in our own life if we just keep looking forward.