Returning to the Covenant Path

When I was a teenager, my dad took my brother and I on a week-long wilderness backpacking trip. Our goal was to hike about fifty miles across a particular mountain range. Along the way, we had an experience that has taught me about sin and repentance on our path back to our Heavenly Father.

It took us a couple of weeks to prepare for the trip. My brother and I needed larger packs and we had to find food and other supplies that wouldn't add too much weight. I needed some new hiking pants and my mom found a cool pair that zipped off into shorts. Finally, we got a ride to the trailhead, confirmed where we would meet my mom at the end of the week, and set off.

For the first few days, everything went well. We were right on schedule, we found plenty of water and the food we had packed was so much better than when we had sampled it at home. The trail was challenging at times, and we had to find shelter during the daily afternoon downpour, but we were enjoying the experience and what time we had for a little fishing at the end of each day.

Around the fourth day of our expedition, we climbed a difficult pass and stopped at the top to rest for several moments. Although it was early in the day, we were tired and sore from three previous days of hiking with our heavy packs. As we prepared to resume, my dad, who had been studying the map, suggested an alternate route. The next part of the trail formed a large horseshoe shape, he observed, and if we could cut across the top of the horseshoe we would certainly save a lot of time and unnecessary distance.

With some uneasiness about the new plan, at least on my part, we began walking across the mountain tundra. It was harder to walk through the grass and rocks and after a few hours I began to wonder if we'd missed the trail somehow. When we ran out of water, we decided to keep going and hoped to find a spring ahead of us. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I prayed for help to keep going and survive the week.

At last we came to the top of a tall cliff. It was as long as we could see in either direction and the obvious reason for the trail's long detour. Unsure of how to proceed, we found a spot to take off our packs and rest while we decided what to do.

After a few minutes of catching our breath, my dad stood up and walked over to where my brother and I were seated. He picked up our packs, walked to the cliff, and threw the packs as far as he could down the mountainside. My brother and I were stunned. My dad paused for a moment and then said something like, "Well, I guess we'd better go and get them."

Eventually, we found our way down the cliff and slid down the rockslide at the base. More time passed as I worked to close a big hole I'd torn in the seat of my new pants and bandage a few good scratches. My brother located a spring (back at the top of the rockslide, of course) and refilled our water containers. When we were able to regroup, we continued our cross-country "shortcut" and found the trail another hundred feet from the bottom of the rockslide.

Although our chosen route was shorter, it was much more difficult and took more time to complete than if we had continued on the trail. I ruined my pants and some of our things were broken in their flight off the cliffs. Now less prepared than before and unable to make our planned rendezvous, we spent the rest of the week hiking carefully down a new trail that led off of the mountain to a small town. We made it just in time to call our ride home before she left to pick us up in the wrong place.

As we journey through life, we sometimes decide to take routes that detour off the "strait and narrow" covenant path. It can be especially easy to do when we are feeling tired, overconfident, or discouraged. 

When we leave the path, the Lord always invites us to repent-- to turn around and return to the trail that leads to our rendezvous with Him. He knows the covenant path is not easy. Like crossing a mountain range, our lives have peaks and valleys with obstacles and steep inclines between each summit. The Lord also knows that the covenant path is the surest way to our divine destination.

Repentance is "a change of mind and heart that brings a fresh attitude toward God, oneself, and life in general." It "implies that a person turns away from evil and turns his heart and will to God, submitting to God's commandments and desires and forsaking sin" (Guide to the Scriptures, "Repent, Repentance"). In other words, repentance includes returning to the trail and a humble willingness to continue to follow it. It includes gratitude for the trail, with all its obstacles and detours, and a recognition that it is the only way to achieve our goal.

Sometimes we wander needlessly through the more difficult wilderness even when there are indications we should return to the covenant path. We rationalize our way across the tundra, figuratively run out of water, and eventually find ourselves at the precipice of decisions that may have more significant impacts on our spiritual welfare and life journey.

If I had returned to the trail more quickly, I would have been able to recover much of the time that was lost. I would not have run out of water, injured myself, or ruined my pants. My dad and brother and I would have almost certainly reached our goal on the other side of the mountain range.

Likewise, when we do incur the damages of an unexpected cliff and rockslide, we sometimes forget that complete repentance includes changing the behaviors that originally led us off the path and toward the cliffs. We walk away from these experiences with resolve not to go over the cliffs, as it were, but without changing the attitudes and behaviors that led us off the trail in the first place.

The Gospel Topics essay on the Church website teaches us:

It is not enough to simply try to resist evil or empty our lives of sin. We must fill our lives with righteousness and engage in activities that bring spiritual power. We must immerse ourselves in the scriptures and pray daily for the Lord to give us strength beyond our own. At times, we should fast for special blessings.

Full obedience brings the complete power of the gospel into our lives, including increased strength to overcome our weaknesses. This obedience includes actions we might not initially consider part of repentance, such as attending meetings, paying tithing, giving service, and forgiving others.

Gratefully, all is not lost when we have gone over a cliff. Regardless of our route, we needed my mom to pick us up at the end of the week and drive us back to the safety and comfort of home. Our detour changed our experience in significant ways, but getting back on the trail and sticking to it allowed us to reach a different, but equally accessible, place where my mom could find us.

Sometimes our detours off the covenant path may have lasting effects on our life experience, but the trail is never far from where we are. As we repent and return to the path, the Lord can show us the route to His grace. With faith in Christ and our own significant effort, we can be reconciled to God (2 Nephi 25:23) and experience the joy and rest of returning home (2 Nephi 11:5).

Matters of Personal Preference

Much of what we do as followers of Christ is governed by his commandments. There were 613 commandments in the Law of Moses; and though that law has been fulfilled, the faithful remain busy loving their neighbors, dressing modestly, paying tithes, going to church, praying always and striving to do all the Lord has asked us to do for the happiness and salvation of his family and ours. None of us is perfect (Romans 3:23), but we usually try not to judge others when they sin (that's also a commandment) and hope for the same mercy when we fall short ourselves.

But what happens when the things we think others are doing wrong aren't addressed by a specific commandment? For example, what about those otherwise faithful saints who vote for the other political party? What about those who are vegetarian or stock up on guns or have too big of a house or shop at stores where we wouldn't be caught dead? Or those who have too many kids or too few kids or whose kids are too rowdy or too well behaved or too spoiled or too shy? Do we ever talk negatively about others or treat them differently because they have different preferences than we do?

That was the case in the ancient Roman empire when Paul sent his epistle around 55 A.D. Although Christ had fulfilled the law of Moses, some of the saints in the early church continued to follow its dietary restrictions and celebrate events like the Passover that were no longer necessary under the law of the gospel. Each school of thought in the matter, both those who ate meat and those who continued to refrain, saw itself as better or more faithful than those who thought differently.

Paul taught these saints, "Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him" (Romans 14:3). In other words, where personal preferences are concerned, be that how we teach our children or who we vote for president, we should be accepting of others and respect the free exercise of their right to choose differently than we do.

Paul continues and takes it a step farther: "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way... But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, thou walkest not charitably if thou eatest. Therefore, destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died" (Romans 14:13, 15).

It was perfectly fine for Roman Christians to eat meat, but it was better for them to abstain from meat for a meal with someone who may have been offended than to risk driving that person away from the gospel altogether. Taking offense is a choice, but so are actions that we know may cause others to stumble or doubt. In such cases, "it is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (Romans 14:21).

In short, Paul admonished the saints to, "follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" (Romans 14:19). This doesn't mean we have to go around walking on eggshells, and some of the things that may offend others may not be things we're willing or even able to change, but where personal preferences are concerned we should also be considerate of how our choices affect others.

What we do to others, we do to God (Matthew 25:40). If we will let love conquer pride and be seekers of peace and edification for all, the Lord has promised that whatever adversity we are facing will pass; contention will fade because of the love of God in our hearts; and the Lord who gave us the commandments will mercifully approve and accept us as his own (see Elder Uchtdorf, In Praise of Those Who Save, April 2016; and Romans 14:18).

Sequoiadendron Giganteum

High in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California is an organism unlike any other in the world. At well over 200 feet tall and sometimes more than 35 feet wide, the Sequoiadendron Giganteum, better known as Giant Sequoia trees, are the largest living things on earth.

They're also one of the oldest. Some of the Giant Sequoias standing today have held their ground for more than 3,500 years. They have tasted of the same winds that filled the sails of fishing boats during China's first dynasty. Perhaps they heard when Babylon fell, the singing of the Israelites being led out of Egypt, or the clanging of swords and shields as the Jaredites battled to their own extinction. Only the Bristlecone Pines of the Great Basin and Chile's Alerce trees have lived longer.

Over last three millennia, while Sequoias have stood tall, literally hundreds of forests have been eliminated due to fires, insects, droughts and other natural phenomenon. Others have been cut down to build homes, weapons, canoes and books. Some forests have regrown; some have struggled because of poor soil quality, harsh environmental conditions, or the prevalence of nut-eating animals that devoured their potential before it ever had a chance to take root. Surely Sequoias are among the luckiest species on earth to have avoided all of that.

Except, of course, that Sequoias haven't avoided those things at all. Sequoia trees grow at high elevations where life-sustaining air and water are both in short supply. Their trunks are so large and so soft (you can punch them without hurting your hand) that it is physically impossible for the trees to push sufficient water from the roots to the branches basking in the sun high above the ground. As they grow, Sequoias provide shade for other plants that soon begin to crowd the trees and suffocate their roots. Worst of all are the disasters.

In the mountains of central California, it is not uncommon for naturally occurring fires to burn hundreds of thousands of acres on an annual basis. Drought conditions can persist for several years and every twenty years or so there will be a winter with no snow at all. When most trees don't have enough moisture to produce sap, the insects invade and wipe them out. All of these and more-- like the earthquakes for which California has become infamous-- happen regularly in and around the groves of Sequoia trees. Really, Sequoias are set up for miserable failure. So how are they still here? How have they endured when nothing else has?

One meaningful way we can answer those questions is by looking for true principles in a similar situation set in a different environment. This will help us discern eternal truths from circumstantial evidence.

After the Saints were driven from Jackson County, Missouri, in 1833, the Lord commanded the Prophet Joseph Smith to lead a group of men from Ohio to help their fellow church members. Roughly 200 men were gathered for what many at that time thought would be a military mission to reclaim property and push back against the mobs that were persecuting the Saints. The group, originally known as the Camp of Israel but better known today as Zion's Camp, was entirely self-funded with some members consecrating as much as $170 (valued at more than $5,000 today), at a time when most Americans made less than a dollar a day. It would also prove to be an extremely difficult and soul-searching experience for its participants, who would walk as much as 40 miles each day through dehydration, hunger, sickness, humidity and heat.

Ultimately, the Lord would disband Zion's Camp before it had fought a single battle. Some of the men were angry at this outcome and apostatized from the church. Others were disappointed or supposed the camp to have been a miserable failure. Joseph Smith, who had contracted cholera and suffered a great deal himself while marching from Ohio to Missouri, would later explain to the Saints, "God did not want you to fight. He could not organize his kingdom with twelve men to open the gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless he took them from a body of men who had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham" (History of the Church, 2:182n). Through incredible opposition, the Lord unlocked even greater potential.

The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Quorum of Seventy were founded in February 1835. Nine of the original Twelve and all members of the Seventy had marched with Zion's Camp. These men would go on to baptize thousands. They would organize the wagon trains across the plains and establish communities throughout the mountain west. In short order, and with faith in the Lord's blessings, they would make the desert blossom as a rose and build both the temporal assets and spiritual legacy that are a great strength to the Church even today.

The prophet Lehi taught that "it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, ... righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad" (2 Nephi 2:11; see also verse 15). This was true even in our pre-mortal existence, when Lucifer sought to destroy the Father's plan and capture His glory. Cast out of heaven, Lucifer and his followers roam the earth tempting and seeking to deceive those who were loyal to God. Yet, as Elder Oaks has pointed out, "that the evil one, who opposed and sought to destroy the Father's plan, actually facilitated it, because it is the opposition that enables choice... that leads to the growth that is the purpose of the Father's plan" (Opposition in All Things, April 2016).

Sequoia trees are no different: their adversity is their strength. Their height protects their cones from many of that animals that would use their cones for food and ensures the trees get the sunlight they need. Their soft trunks, useless to mankind for wood, store moisture and are naturally fire-resistant. Though insects may penetrate their bark, Sequoias are not dependent on their trunks to push water to the rest of the tree. The grace of an occasional fog provides moisture to the branches, preventing the trees from dying, and allows the tree to grow back where insects may have burrowed.

Then, every so often, the stress of drought and crowding underbrush reaches fever pitch and a bolt of lightning sets the forest on fire. What would be the end of most trees is a glorious beginning for the deep-rooted Sequoias as the fire's heat begins to expand the otherwise tightly sealed Sequoia cones. As the cones are opened, each tree releases up to 400,000 winged seeds onto the freshly fertilized ground below. Because the trees are so tall, seeds can float hundreds of feet away to find an open patch of ground. Through incredible opposition, even greater potential is unlocked.

As seeds turn into seedlings and seedlings turn into trees, Sequoias create an additional barrier around their groves. Where there are Sequoia trees, it will be difficult for other trees to grow; and where few other trees grow, fatal forest fires are reduced to brush fires that cause temporary pain and scarring but also fertilize the ground so the Giant Sequoias can grow stronger and establish a generation to last another three thousand years.

One thing that distinguishes us all from Sequoia trees is ability to choose. Sequoia trees are what they were created to be and they fulfill their role in God's plan. Each of us has been created as child of God with a divine and glorious potential. Our role is to learn to be like our Heavenly Father through faith in Christ and his Atonement, repentance, making and keeping covenants, relying on the Holy Ghost and enduring all things; but unlike Sequoia trees, we are allowed to choose whether the opposition inherent to this life will unlock our potential or weaken our ability to resist the dangerous fires of worldly philosophies and temptations. We can plant the seed of our testimony on fertile ground and become the faithful builders of an eternal Zion; or we can harden our hearts and become like the destructive apostates that are swept away when times get tough.

We get to choose what kind of a tree we will be in the forest of God's creations, but the choice we make will determine our destiny. If we will choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, using opposition to build the strength of our faith rather than deplete it, offering all we have and are as Abraham did, the Lord will send us his tender mercies as the fog to strengthen us now and expand our souls until they are more glorious than even the Giant Sequoias.