Moving Mountains
February 2012
Have you ever been in bed after an exhausting day and you are so comfortable there is no place you would rather be then where you are at that very moment…then you hear it. Something like water dripping in the next room or the ticking of a clock…nothing loud or really that obnoxious but the more you try and ignore it, the louder and louder it gets until you can’t concentrate on anything but that noise. Recently I wrote in my journal and told Anna about just such an experience that was troubling me, although mine was a very light but insistent knocking. I’ve tried to ignore it in hopes that it will go away but there it is…tap tap tap…knock knock knock…BANG BANG BANG. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and clawed my way out of my comfortable spot only to realize that the knocking was coming from within me and only when I truly took the time to listen did I hear in a clear but stern voice the words “Daniel, it’s time to get up…you have rested long enough in your comfort zone it is time to stretch those muscles and grow”…I wasn’t sure in what way I was about to grow until about a week later we got a call to meet with the Stake President. After our meeting Anna turned to me and said “I guess now we know what all that knocking was about”
So here I find myself with this tremendous opportunity to grow and serve and at times the calling can feel like a mountain in front of me as I try and live up to those who have served before me and feel like I have something to add to those with whom I’m serving. We are all faced with our own mountains in our lives that come in various forms from callings to trials to opportunities to grow and move forward. The Lord has promised each of us that “if [we] have faith as a grain of mustard seed, [we] shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to unto you” (Matthew 17:20). This has always troubled me a little bit because I have seen the size of a mustard seed, as I’m sure many of you have, and it is almost invisible to the naked eye. There have been times when I have doubted my faith because if it takes so little to move a mountain I must have none at all. That was before I realized that the Lord doesn’t guarantee that we will be able to literally move our personal mountains from our path forgoing the experience but rather He will give us the tools to overcome those mountains and more often than not through our faith, we will have to simply start climbing the mountains that lay before us. Not to worry, however, the Lord never leaves alone to conquer our mountains and many times we have the tools within us to overcome and simply don’t recognize them. Let me share a few examples of what I’m talking about.
The Lord Prepares us for our Challenges
There are several examples throughout the scriptures that we can turn to in which people have faced their mountains or in some cases the mountains take on the form of actual giants. Through their faith they have triumphed with faith in the Lord. Of course I’m speaking about the story of David and Goliath. This story has always intrigued me because what would possess a young boy to One, want to stand up to Goliath when everyone else in his land was afraid and Two, why would King Saul trust this young man with all of Israel’s fate. The key is in recognizing that the Lord prepared David for the challenge he was facing through past experiences. In Samuel 17: 34-37 David tells King Saul that he “kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and [he] went out after him, and smote him…[and] slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them…The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine”. In other words the Lord had given David challenges in his past that prepared him for the current challenge he was facing. S. Michael Wilcox in his book “Finding Hope” brings up a great point when he stated: I’m sure David could have easily thought his life hard to have not only a bear but also a lion come after his flock. How easy he could have called to the Lord, as we so often do, “What did I do to deserve both a Lion and a Bear?” and the Lord could have easily answered “Because you will one day face a Goliath”
Sometimes we must simply “Just Keep Swimming”
Often times we won’t see the Goliath looming in our future or recognize the lion’s and bears in our past that have prepared us for the challenges we are facing. In fact too often we feel lost and alone in our trials unsure of what we are supposed to learn or in what direction we are supposed to go. I remember several times in my life where I would cry in humble prayer and frustration to the Lord that I was willing to take the steps neccessary if he would only tell me what direction I was supposed to be walking. In these times I find myself repeating the phrase “Just Keep Swimming”. This may sound like a strange phrase after all what does swimming have to do with overcoming our challenges. Let me explain. Years ago, my sister and her husband were struggling financially and had skimped and saved for months to take a family trip to Arizona to visit their Grandma that lives there. This was the only trip there were going to be able to take that year and their kids looked forward to it with excitement and anticipation. The day before they were to begin their 15 hour family road trip their car broke down with no clear explanation as to what was wrong. Well, as you can imagine my sister took this news hard. The dam that had been holding back all the fears, the stresses and the frustrations finally broke and she sat at her kitchen table with her face in her hands and silent tears running down her face. At this moment her then young son, too young to understand the gravity of what was happening, came and put his hand on her back and said “Mom it will all work out we need to just keep swimming”. He went on to explain to my sister, as only a child can, how he had learned an eternal principal in the Pixar movie “Finding Nemo”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the film it is the story of two fish Dory, the eternal optimist, and Marlin, a worrier in every sense of the word, who set across the ocean to rescue Marlin’s son, Nemo. In a particular scene Dory leads Marlin into the depths of the sea. As it grows dark around Dory and Marlin, Marlin complained that they didn’t know where they were going and couldn’t even see what was ahead. Too this Dory response was simple…”When life gets you down, do you know what you need to do…just keep swimming”. Needless to say everything works out for Dory and Marlin and everything worked out for my sister as it was a simple, and more importantly free, fix to their car and they were on their way to Arizona as scheduled. So although we may not see the reason behind our trials or even know the answers to our questions, sometimes the Lord simply requires that we “Just Keep Swimming”.
The Lord is the Gardner
This brings me to one of my favorite stories as told by Hugh B. Brown.
I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?”
You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.
Elder Hugh B. Brown goes on to tell that later in his life as he faced a trial that seemed both overwhelming and unjust he cried unto the Lord “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” and then, he continues “I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do” and who I want you to become.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord knows each of us individually. He knows what he wants us to become and he sees our potential. He loves us enough to give us each our Lions and our Bears that when our Goliaths come we will be able to overcome them. Each of us will be faced, from time to time, with our own souls knocking whether thru callings we receive, trials that come or opportunities to move forward and grow. As Dr. Seuss once said “Today is your day, your mountain is waiting…so get on your way.” It is my prayer that we have the faith enough to put on our hiking boots and head up into the canyons to overcome our personal mountains.
No comments:
Post a Comment