36 Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land.
Ammon plainly says that if he’s boasting, so be it! For he is boasting in his God and not himself. It sounds like Ammon has a healthy perspective on who God is and who he is and his relationship to him.
Yes, he knows he’s nothing as to his own strength, the strength of men. But he also knows he can do great things as an instrument in God’s hands. Perhaps he has the confidence that Brother Joseph speaks of when he once said something like it’s necessary for us to not only have faith in God but confidence in ourselves. And if we don’t, we cannot accomplish our work and please God. But it is a healthy, humble confidence, like that which Ammon has, in which he knew he depended on God for everything, but was also confident that through God and the strength God gives him, he can do all things. Even great things! Like being an instrument in God’s hands in bringing some of the most darkest and depraved of God’s children, the Lamanites, not only to Christ, but to develop a Christlike love that was unsurpassed even among the people of God, the Nephites.
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