There are many scriptures that list being valiant as desirable, for example, "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done many acts" (1 Chronicles 11:22). Now being valiant by itself does not mean someone is righteous, the wicked are sometimes called valiant, but the Lord wants the righteous to be valiant too. In fact, losing out on the celestial kingdom is described as "These are they who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus; wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God." (D&C 76:79).
So what does it mean to be valiant? I guess my best answer is to describe experiences that have helped me to understand it. Experiences that have shaped my ability to take a stand for the right, to not let anger be an excuse, to follow the commandments, and to stay on the Lord's course.
As a child I was teased regularly because of the physical deformities from my cleft palette. I was regularly known as "Flat Nose" or "Dumbo". Sometimes it was hard for me to handle - I would feel the anger surge, but I was taught that violence should not be option. I tolerated the taunting and simply moved forward. Their words might hurt, but they could not stop me from doing what I knew was right.One day in fourth grade a big tough fifth grader named Ren was teasing me. I was sitting in the second row of the bus, and he was behind me. I was not surprised when Ren called me Flat Nose and starting teasing me about how my looks were disturbing to others. It was common and in 20 minutes we would be at the school. Seeing that I was ignoring him he decided to get more physical.
He pushed the back of my head forward. I could ignore that. He started flicking my ears. I could ignore that. He licked his fingers and stuck them in my ears. That's too much. I turned around, told him to stop and pretended to read a book. He reached over, closed my book, licked his fingers, and stuck them in my ears again.
Roiling mad I had a choice. My parents had taught me to not use violence, but this was escalating, and clearly Ren would not stop until he got the reaction he wanted from me. The hard part was that my emotions were raging and all I wanted was to punch the guy.
Being valiant means doing the right thing regardless what your emotions say. The struggle is that I can't tell what is right when my emotions are strong. In this case I felt that I needed to take a stand against bullying. I felt that I needed to let Ren know that he had crossed the line. I made a decision to fight back. I gave him one fair warning, "Ren, if you do that again I will punch you."
Three second later sloppy wet fingers were in my ears. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. It was probably the very reaction he wanted. I balled a fist, swung around and connected with his nose. He slammed back against his seat holding his nose looking wide eyed. To my knowledge it didn't bleed, but he was quiet the rest of the ride home. Later a friend told me the bus driver had chuckled and then pretended not to be watching in the mirror when I turned around.
I spent the rest of the morning in doubt. I felt as if I had violated one of my own rules. In acting out I had violated my own rule against violence. On the bus ride home from school I avoided Ren, but the next day he was sitting behind me again. To my surprise he left me alone. In fact every day after that he left me alone. The only time he ever brought it up was years later when he said, "Hey, Scott... remember that time you punched me on the bus? That suprised me so much!"
I learned that being valiant means you're willing to stick up for what is right, and sometimes that means taking action. I have great respect for the soldiers of our nation who are willing to pick up arms in defense of their country. When Zarahemnah offered to stop the famous battle against Captain Moroni while promising to come back and fight another day Moroni's response was "Behold, we will end the conflict." (Alma 44:10) Moroni was valient in knowing the right time to fight, and being willing to stand up for what was right when it was time.
Physical fights aren't what I face now. When I graduated high school we were in a long line to return books when a kid started using vulgar language. One of the bullies that had tormented me when I was younger stood up to him and told him to stop his profanity. My respsect for a peer that I had once despised skyrocketed. He understood what it meant to be valiant and he faced down this other kid to make him stop swearing.
After these stories you might think being valiant means being tough. That has nothing to do with it. It's possible to get angry and to stand up for yourself and not be valiant. One summer my wife and I took our three year old Thomas with us to Lagoon - an amusement park. We were met by Teasha's parents who helped us watch over Thomas. As I passed the spook alley I commented to Teasha that I remembered how that ride used to scare me as a little boy. I would have nightmares and feel creeped out for days. We left Thomas with his grandmother and explained how we wanted to go through the ride to see if I could recall why it was so terrifying.
The ride was hilarious - the scary dummies were laghable, and the jump scares were predicatable. When we came out I was thrilled to realize I found nothing scary now, although I probably should never have gone on that ride as a child. We looked around for Thomas and Grandma. They were gone. Teasha's father informed us Grandma had taken our three year old through the spookhouse behind us.
I was livid. In a park full of fun things there is no reason to scare a small child. Their cart rolled out of the spookhouse and Thomas was shaking staring at his shoes. I was full of strength, and if you had asked me I would have said that what I did next was "valiant".
"How could you do that? You just heard me talk about how it traumatized me as a child! There was no reason to take Thomas through that!" I continued my tirade explaining the inappropriateness of the action, and ending with "How could you be so stupid!?"
At that point Grandpa stepped in "Don't call my wife stupid. You are out of line. Come take a walk." And he walked with me until I had regained my cool. I realized that I had let my anger take over. I returned to Grandma and apologized for my outburst. It struck me afterwards that (although I may have been in the right to say I didn't want my child to go through the spookhouse) because I lost my temper the only thing everyone remembers from that incident is how I blew my top. The point I was trying to make was lost, and I was the one left looking like a fool. I excused myself by saying I was being valiant, but the truth was it was only an excuse.
Grandpa was the one who was valiant in that story. He stood up against a very angry father to protect his loved ones. Instead of losing this temper he evaluated what was right and then stood up for it. Valiant is not the same as strong, angry, or powerful. It means to use your strength in defense of right.
The Lord made the distinction clear: "when we undertake to... gratify ourpride,...or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion...Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.... No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;" (D&C 121:37,41)
In elementary school there was a talented and hard working photographer that would come every year to take school pictures. He was clever and humorous in his methods for getting us to smile. Because I knew he wanted me to smile I made a pointed effort to NOT smile. I thought valiant meant tough, and tough meant you did the opposite of what people wanted to you do. For that reason alone I refused to smile for my school picture.
Every year I would get the school pictures and be so proud of myself to see I didn't smile. Then I would show my mother and she would be so sad that I scowled. We would drive back to "picture retake" day on Saturday where I would smile to make my mother happy. Each year I would think "I wish I had just smiled the first time."
And then then next year when that photographer would say "Smile!" I would say "nuh-uh" and refuse. Blame it on immaturity, but it took me many years to realize that refusing to do what others wanted me to do was not the same as being valiant. It's matter of understanding what the right thing to do is, and then acting on that - regardless of whether others want you to or not.
Grandpa Corbridge understood that better than most. I suspect it's related to his experiences growing up. When he was eleven years old his parents went on a plane trip with their good neighbors. The Corbridge family had four small children, and the Elder's family had four small children. All four parents were in the airplane when it crashed and they died.
As a boy grandpa was thrown into a world of chaos and trials as his grandparents took the four Corbridge children and tried to raise them. Spirituality and patience were not always in great supply for an elderly couple that was already losing the vitality of youth. When I married into the family he told me how it was difficult to remain valiant with so many mixed messages and traumatic events to distract him. Many times he relied on his brothers and sister to keep himself sane.
Then one day he managed to find one of the four Elder family children. It had been 30 years and everyone had grown up and matured in their own way. A reunion was scheduled and all 8 children met at a church. They discovered one huge difference between the Corbridge and the Elder families. The Corbridge children had been kept together while the Elder's were split up and raised in separate homes. For years some of them didn't know where their siblings were.
Grandpa Corbridge learned something important about being valiant that day. He had not realized until that day what a benefit his siblings had been to him during those difficult years. The Elder's had lost a lot of the spirituality, the trust, the stability, and the direction in their lives. They had traveled difficult paths and only as older adults were they able to start to mend the psychological and emotional damage to put their lives back together.
Sometimes being valiant is confused with being alone - standing by yourself and fending off the entire world. The truth is the opposite - being valiant includes knowing who you can rely on and whom you can lean on. Because the Corbridge children had each other they weathered the terror of their parents death much better than the Elder's did. I am sure in heaven there will be a way to balance the unfair aspects of life.
To be valiant is to look for what is right, relying on people you can trust to help you know what is right, and then to act on it and use your might, mind, and strength to do what you know is right. That is why Helaman's 2000 stripling warriors are referred to as "young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted." (Alma 53:20)
Being valiant means doing the right thing regardless what your emotions say. The struggle is that I can't tell what is right when my emotions are strong. In this case I felt that I needed to take a stand against bullying. I felt that I needed to let Ren know that he had crossed the line. I made a decision to fight back. I gave him one fair warning, "Ren, if you do that again I will punch you."
Three second later sloppy wet fingers were in my ears. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. It was probably the very reaction he wanted. I balled a fist, swung around and connected with his nose. He slammed back against his seat holding his nose looking wide eyed. To my knowledge it didn't bleed, but he was quiet the rest of the ride home. Later a friend told me the bus driver had chuckled and then pretended not to be watching in the mirror when I turned around.
I spent the rest of the morning in doubt. I felt as if I had violated one of my own rules. In acting out I had violated my own rule against violence. On the bus ride home from school I avoided Ren, but the next day he was sitting behind me again. To my surprise he left me alone. In fact every day after that he left me alone. The only time he ever brought it up was years later when he said, "Hey, Scott... remember that time you punched me on the bus? That suprised me so much!"
I learned that being valiant means you're willing to stick up for what is right, and sometimes that means taking action. I have great respect for the soldiers of our nation who are willing to pick up arms in defense of their country. When Zarahemnah offered to stop the famous battle against Captain Moroni while promising to come back and fight another day Moroni's response was "Behold, we will end the conflict." (Alma 44:10) Moroni was valient in knowing the right time to fight, and being willing to stand up for what was right when it was time.
Physical fights aren't what I face now. When I graduated high school we were in a long line to return books when a kid started using vulgar language. One of the bullies that had tormented me when I was younger stood up to him and told him to stop his profanity. My respsect for a peer that I had once despised skyrocketed. He understood what it meant to be valiant and he faced down this other kid to make him stop swearing.
After these stories you might think being valiant means being tough. That has nothing to do with it. It's possible to get angry and to stand up for yourself and not be valiant. One summer my wife and I took our three year old Thomas with us to Lagoon - an amusement park. We were met by Teasha's parents who helped us watch over Thomas. As I passed the spook alley I commented to Teasha that I remembered how that ride used to scare me as a little boy. I would have nightmares and feel creeped out for days. We left Thomas with his grandmother and explained how we wanted to go through the ride to see if I could recall why it was so terrifying.
I was livid. In a park full of fun things there is no reason to scare a small child. Their cart rolled out of the spookhouse and Thomas was shaking staring at his shoes. I was full of strength, and if you had asked me I would have said that what I did next was "valiant".
"How could you do that? You just heard me talk about how it traumatized me as a child! There was no reason to take Thomas through that!" I continued my tirade explaining the inappropriateness of the action, and ending with "How could you be so stupid!?"
At that point Grandpa stepped in "Don't call my wife stupid. You are out of line. Come take a walk." And he walked with me until I had regained my cool. I realized that I had let my anger take over. I returned to Grandma and apologized for my outburst. It struck me afterwards that (although I may have been in the right to say I didn't want my child to go through the spookhouse) because I lost my temper the only thing everyone remembers from that incident is how I blew my top. The point I was trying to make was lost, and I was the one left looking like a fool. I excused myself by saying I was being valiant, but the truth was it was only an excuse.
Grandpa was the one who was valiant in that story. He stood up against a very angry father to protect his loved ones. Instead of losing this temper he evaluated what was right and then stood up for it. Valiant is not the same as strong, angry, or powerful. It means to use your strength in defense of right.
The Lord made the distinction clear: "when we undertake to... gratify ourpride,...or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion...Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.... No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;" (D&C 121:37,41)
Every year I would get the school pictures and be so proud of myself to see I didn't smile. Then I would show my mother and she would be so sad that I scowled. We would drive back to "picture retake" day on Saturday where I would smile to make my mother happy. Each year I would think "I wish I had just smiled the first time."
And then then next year when that photographer would say "Smile!" I would say "nuh-uh" and refuse. Blame it on immaturity, but it took me many years to realize that refusing to do what others wanted me to do was not the same as being valiant. It's matter of understanding what the right thing to do is, and then acting on that - regardless of whether others want you to or not.
Grandpa Corbridge understood that better than most. I suspect it's related to his experiences growing up. When he was eleven years old his parents went on a plane trip with their good neighbors. The Corbridge family had four small children, and the Elder's family had four small children. All four parents were in the airplane when it crashed and they died.As a boy grandpa was thrown into a world of chaos and trials as his grandparents took the four Corbridge children and tried to raise them. Spirituality and patience were not always in great supply for an elderly couple that was already losing the vitality of youth. When I married into the family he told me how it was difficult to remain valiant with so many mixed messages and traumatic events to distract him. Many times he relied on his brothers and sister to keep himself sane.
Then one day he managed to find one of the four Elder family children. It had been 30 years and everyone had grown up and matured in their own way. A reunion was scheduled and all 8 children met at a church. They discovered one huge difference between the Corbridge and the Elder families. The Corbridge children had been kept together while the Elder's were split up and raised in separate homes. For years some of them didn't know where their siblings were.
Grandpa Corbridge learned something important about being valiant that day. He had not realized until that day what a benefit his siblings had been to him during those difficult years. The Elder's had lost a lot of the spirituality, the trust, the stability, and the direction in their lives. They had traveled difficult paths and only as older adults were they able to start to mend the psychological and emotional damage to put their lives back together.
Sometimes being valiant is confused with being alone - standing by yourself and fending off the entire world. The truth is the opposite - being valiant includes knowing who you can rely on and whom you can lean on. Because the Corbridge children had each other they weathered the terror of their parents death much better than the Elder's did. I am sure in heaven there will be a way to balance the unfair aspects of life.To be valiant is to look for what is right, relying on people you can trust to help you know what is right, and then to act on it and use your might, mind, and strength to do what you know is right. That is why Helaman's 2000 stripling warriors are referred to as "young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted." (Alma 53:20)
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