Moving Along

Well folks, I guess we are really moving. We love our house, but it has a lot of stairs and none of us like stairs very much any more. We’re looking for one-level living. No stairs, everything we need on one level. Ease of movement throughout our living space.

It occurs to me that the gospel is something like that. We often feel that we are fighting an uphill battle as mortals on this earth. All we do seems to be uphill – nothing but stairs (and sometimes, no stairs). There are difficulties, even big rocks that impede our progress. For instance, as we prepared our house for sale, we encountered a major plumbing problem that cost us a lot of money to repair – and our home insurance only paid about a third of the cost.

We may even find ourselves stopping in the climb. We rest, we relax a little. We really have considered not selling our house because it’s just too hard. We thought about procrastinating the sale for a year or two.

Likewise, we may say: “I’ll do my home teaching next week. If I happen to see the Bishop, I’ll tell him about that problem with one of my home teaching families, otherwise, it can wait.” The distance to our eternal goals seems to be so far off as to be a mirage, unreal, unreachable.

As with our house, we are looking for strain-free progress -- “one-level” living. We want our mortal path to be easy, well marked, and flat. The stress of the upward track should give way to stunning vistas and easy walking. We could make so much more progress if the way was easier, but it is often not easy. President Hinckley was fond of this quote:

Most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

Jenkins Lloyd Jones, Deseret News, 12 June 1973; as quoted in Go Forward with Faith, The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996), p. 448

The Lord tells us: in Matthew 7:13:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

So the wide path is the easy one – downhill all the way. Except that there are just as many (and maybe more) trials and tribulations on that path as there are on the narrow one that leads upward, and they must be endured without the comfort, peace, and perspective that the gospel brings. So rather than overcoming, those on this path fail the great test and suffer alone.

The strait gate is, of course, repentance and baptism by immersion, and the gift of the Holy Ghost is bestowed on us to help us stay on the narrow path. So the wonderful message of the scriptures is that we can all traverse the path of mortality successfully. Through the atonement and the Grace of God, we can prevail over all the trials and tribulations we suffer, and return to our Father-in-Heaven. In D&C 132:7 we learn:

…know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

In mortality, and in no other place, can we suffer the pains and joys that we experience here. In no other place can we be prepared for the joys of eternity. In no other place can we prove ourselves to ourselves and to our Heavenly Father. Without the understanding that the gospel brings we cannot take full advantage of the atonement and grace of our Savior.

This wonderful eternal harmony consists of several voices raised in the song of the ages: The voices of justice, mercy, love, peace, eternal increase, atonement, grace, discipleship, and eternal families lead us along the path. When the voices get weak, when they whisper instead of shout, or worse, cease altogether, we may know that we have left the upward path.

Eliza R. Snow summarizes the heart of this great message of God's divine harmonizing of the Great Plan of the Eternal God (Alma 34:9) in the hymn "How Great the Wisdom and the Love":

“He marked the path, and led the way, and every point defined, to light and life and endless day, where God’s full presence shines.”

In my humble opinion, the path is only narrow because of the understanding we have of what we must do to return to our Father-in-Heaven. I think that the feet of the many thousands who have gone before us have packed the path so that it is well-defined and easy to follow. I think that the Savior did indeed mark the path, and leads the way, but we cannot miss the direction we must travel if we see it with an eternal perspective. Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in a talk called “The Probationary Test of Mortality,” given at a Salt Lake Institute of Religion devotional, said this:

The way it operates is this: you get on the path that’s named the ‘straight and narrow.’ You do it by entering the gate of repentance and baptism. The straight and narrow path leads from the gate of repentance and baptism, a very great distance, to a reward that’s called eternal life. …

 True it is that departure from the path is easy, and staying on it is hard, but away from the path, the way quickly becomes harder and the downward spiral darker and more and more treacherous, without the light of the gospel. So eventually, as C. S. Lewis said:

The command be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.

So get on the path and stay on it. You are the only movable one – God the Father and His perfect son, Jesus Christ, do not move. They are the eternal guideposts for our sojourn here. Their arms are open and waiting at the end of the mortal portion of the path. Keep going. Keep trying. As Sir Winston Churchill said:

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We know and understand, at least dimly, who the enemy is, and what his plans for us are..