Pilot me

Say you wanted to communicate a most important message, would you put it at the beginning of your talk or at the end? If you wanted the most people to hear it, read it, and apply it--would you put it at the front of the book, in the middle, or at the conclusion? Journalists use a prose called news style which is where the most important structural element of a story is the lead. Who? What? Where? Why? and When?

These are rhetorical questions. But I offer them to help stimulate the reasoning that the most important messages are often found at the beginning.

The point is that the most critical information may be presented at the outset. If we apply that philosophy to the Book of Mormon, what do we find? Here are a few things:

• Accomplishing the impossible with God's help (Nephi builds a ship)
• Navigating difficulty (Lehi and his family face challenges in the wilderness)
• Tools to face life's trials, hardship (Lehi's dream, the rod of iron, the tree of life)
• Hope to conquer obstacles in life (Nephi retrieves the brass plates)

Many of you don't remember President Kimball. He was prophet and president of the Church many years ago, but that was during my growing up years. He faced many challenges in life. President Kimball had a beautiful voice as a young man and was an accomplished piano player. In his later years, he developed throat cancer and the resulting operation changed his singing voice for the remainder of life on earth. Loss of loved ones, disease, financial difficulty, and physical hardship plagued him--yet he kept a positive attitude and incredible resilience. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from him. I think it is relevant to this message so I have shared it below:

"It is easy to get discouraged. It is easy to quit, but you must not fail. You remember how Nephi went into an impossible situation and couldn’t get the plates. His brothers couldn’t. They couldn’t buy them. They couldn’t bribe them out of the hands of Laban. They couldn’t force their way in, and their lives were hanging on a thread. In spite of all that, here comes one boy, unarmed, who walks into a city through a wall that was closed to him, through gates that couldn’t be opened, into a garden that was impenetrable, into a vault that was locked, among soldiers that couldn’t be bypassed, and comes out with his arms full of records to keep his posterity and others from perishing in unbelief."

Life is hard enough. Without the divine help we receive by obedience to gospel principles, it's often more than we can tackle alone. But in the face of apparent tragedy we must put our trust in God, knowing that despite our limited view His purposes will not fail. With all its troubles, life offers us the tremendous privilege to grow in knowledge, wisdom, faith, and works as we prepare to return and share God’s glory.

Read more here: Tragedy or Destiny?

I love you, dad