Wading

Sometimes I feel like I'm wading.  Sometimes, I feel like I am up to my waist in problems, sickness, and stress.  It is about those times that I would like to talk here, the instances when we find ourselves beset by trials and struggles that seem beyond our ability to overcome.  Just to be clear, I don't have a lot of trials going on in my life right now, but my family and my wife's family have had their share of serious trials over the years, and my recent study of the Book of Mormon has prompted me to share my thoughts on the matter.

There is one scriptural account that I have found especially powerful.  It is in the book of Helaman, chapter three.  Just to give a little background, the people in the land of Zarahemla have become prideful and have started persecuting the poorer and more humble members of the church.  The persecution was so great, in fact, that they began to "wade through much affliction." I love the imagery of wading through affliction. It brings to mind images from my childhood, when the lake near my home was low, and we would race and play in the long stretches of shallow water and mud.  More often than not, I found myself stuck in mud up to my waste, barely able to move and free myself without another's help.  Perhaps that image from my past of wading through mud makes the imagery in this verse more pertinent to me, but I think it is the perfect description for trials and afflictions. In most cases, trials seem to keep us from accomplishing our goals, and living as we would most like to live; we become stuck, just as I got stuck while wading through the mud as a child.

(I didn't have any pictures of the mud near my home, but this one gets at what I am talking about.)

The most meaningful part of this analogy, however, is not the manner in which we wade through afflictions, but in how we get out of them.  This is where the scripture from Helaman comes in.

"Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in their faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God."

This is one of my favorite verses of scripture, and when I feel like I am wading through life, nothing gets me back on solid ground better than trying to apply this verse to my everyday life.  What I love about this verse is the way that it challenges the world's view on how we are supposed to overcome difficult times.  There are thousands of books and movies and seminars out there that are focused on "self help," the process of improving yourself, usually by devoting more time and energy towards personal goals and "me time." I don't mean to say that having personal goals and time for introspection are bad. On the contrary, I think that they are important aspects of life.  What I do mean to say is that according to scripture, the best way to improve yourself and overcome trials is to focus not on yourself, but on yielding your heart unto God, which we can take to mean loving and worshiping God, and loving and serving our fellow men.

It seems counter intuitive at first, that you can improve yourself and your circumstances by focusing your time on others, yet we have scriptural evidence that such is the case.  The people in the scripture above fasted and prayed and yielded their hearts unto God, and as a result, they became strong, firm, joyful, pure, and sanctified.  What I love most about the wording of this scripture is that these people were strong in their humility, firm in their faith, and filled with joy, despite the fact that they were forced to wade through much affliction. I may be wrong, but I would think that most people don't consider humility to be a strength, faith to be firm, or that afflictions can result in joy and consolation.

Despite what the world at large believes, however, it is an eternal truth that those who spend their lives in service to God and their fellow men become better people through the atonement of Jesus Christ. They become strong in their humility, firm in their faith, and filled with joy as He purifies and sanctifies their hearts.  And so, when it seems like I am wading waste deep in the proverbial mud around me, I think of the people of Helaman, who discovered in their own afflictions that they could find strength, peace, and purification by yielding their hearts unto God.