Chains
I'll give away my sins to know Thee
Listen
Start by listening to Chains from Hold the Line. The words are on the song’s page.
The message
Nephi described exactly how the adversary binds people: he "leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever." A flaxen cord is a thread. You can hardly feel it. That's this song. It starts as a little thing you keep, a secret you can hide, and it doesn't seem that real. But every time you give it room, another cord gets tied, until the thread's a chain and the chain's a load, and you're dragging iron down the enemy's road.
The second verse names the links honestly. Pride first, then anger, then a screen at midnight and the lies told best. Kept quiet. Hidden from the light. And then the question every person caught in sin eventually asks: why does the Spirit feel so far away at night? Here's the hard truth the song tells: you can't swing a sword with chains on your hands. You can't stand in the army of the Lord while you're still bound in the devil's bands. Jesus said no man can serve two masters.
Then the man reads about a king. Lamoni's father was a powerful Lamanite king who heard Aaron teach about the plan of redemption and about Christ. And he wanted it. He bowed down to the earth and prayed, "O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee." Not some of them. All of them. That's the trade that actually makes sense. Give away everything that binds you, to know Him.
But don't miss this. We can't break the chains ourselves. Alma the Younger tells us what it was like to be "harrowed up by the memory of my many sins," and then he remembered his father teaching about "one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world." He cried out in his heart, "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me," and he says he could remember his pains no more, and his soul was filled with joy as exceeding as his pain had been. That's how chains break. Not by willpower. By Jesus Christ.
The bridge borrows Lehi's last plea to his sons: awake, arise from the dust, shake off the chains with which you are bound, and come forth. Alma reminded his people that the Lord had loosed their fathers from "the chains of hell." And the Lord promised in this dispensation, "he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more." Elder Dale G. Renlund taught that repentance is a choice we can make because of the Savior's Atonement, and that it leads to joy.
That's where this song ends. The tempo doubles, the chains are left rusting in the dust, and a man who was bound is marching with the army of the Lord. If you're carrying something tonight, you don't have to keep carrying it. Bring it out of hiding. Give it to Him. He's waiting to set you free.
Ponder
Lamoni's father didn't offer to give away some of his sins. Which one are you still holding back, and what do you think you would be giving up if you let the Savior take it?
Try this tonight
Privately, write on a piece of paper one thing you want to give away to know Him better. Pray and ask Heavenly Father to help you with it, then tear the paper up.