This short prayer is one of the most remarkable recorded in any scripture. It is a model of faith moving to action with divine result. Later, Alma will tell seekers: “If ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words” (Alma 32:27).
How weak may faith be and still be faith? The over-king’s prayer answers that question. Alma suggests that the lowest form of faith is simply the desire to believe coupled with an action based upon that belief. Lamoni’s father prays: “O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God.” This God is not one he understands. It is not his god, but Aaron’s. He is honest in saying so, not claiming more than he knows. In fact, he expresses his very real skepticism by adding, “and if there is a God.… ” Here is a faith so small that it is only the desire to believe! Not yet convinced of God’s existence, still the king prays.
The king follows his first if with a second: “… and if thou art God.… ” This if is perhaps more significant than the first. The king not only doubts God’s existence but also, if he exists, God’s identity as well. This king is the picture of hesitation, the portrait of doubt. What he has of faith is not built on any understanding but rather on that pure and simple desire to believe, that lowest form of faith.
He follows his double if with the plea: “wilt thou make thyself known unto me.” The king desires to believe and asks that this desire be fulfilled into a stronger belief.
Lamoni’s father then makes a powerful offer: “I will give away all my sins to know thee.” This humble and awe-inspiring offer separates mere curiosity from a true desire to believe. God tends not to fulfill such curiosity, but he responds to a sincere willingness to change as a consequence of one’s developing faith. Curiosity requires no fundamental change of being—faith does.
The king’s willingness represents an interesting shift. He had begun with what the wealthy tend to think of as a sacrifice. He is willing to give up his kingdom and possessions (v. 15). In a sense, he expects to buy this “great joy.” When we see him actually on his knees, however, his humility and desire to believe allow the Spirit to touch his heart. At that point he offers the treasure that God truly desires: his whole soul. So rapidly and so powerfully can faith transform us! If we are unwilling to accept the requisite cleansing of our souls, the elimination of the sins we sometimes treasure, then we will be unwilling and unprepared for the joy that God offers. This man who does not even know if this God exists, or—if God does exist whether he is praying to the right God—this man beginning with only the barest form of belief, still possesses faith’s most essential characteristic: a willingness to act.