Praying for Success

While teaching them about the Savior’s atonement, Amulek instructed the Zoramites to pray over just about everything.  It’s interesting to me that much of what he listed was temporal.  He told them, “Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea over all your flocks” (Alma 34:20).  He repeated the same idea a second time: “Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.  Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase” (Alma 34:24-25).  Essentially he was telling them that they should pray for success in their temporal affairs.  God does care that we can find success in our careers or by whatever means it is that we earn our livelihood, but it comes with a requirement.  I think version 28 is specifically linked to these previous verses about praying for prosperity: “After ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy… your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing.”  This is essentially the same idea that Jacob taught his people: “After ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry” (Jacob 2:19).  If we pray to find temporal success in our day to day work, then part of that prayer should be the desire to use our success to help those in need.