Patience

Last week I gave a talk in church on Hope. As I was studying hope I read a scripture story that showed me hope's close kin; patience. The story is an account told in Ether of the Book of Mormon. It is about a group of people who flee into the wilderness after the fall of the Tower of Babel. The Lord leads them away and tells them He is leading them to a promise land. After years of travel they arrive at a little body of water and the Lord instructs them to build barges and sail accross, which they do. They travel some more until they hit the ocean and once again they are asked to build some barges and sail accross. For the sake of keeping this blog short I'll speed past the building of the barges and into the actaul voyage. Here are the details of that trip:

"when the night came, they did not cease to praise the Lord"

-The only light they had was two stones

-Inside the barges was all their food, family, and livestock
-They had no sail, oars, or compass for them to guide themselves with
-They had to open a hole in the top in order to get air inside their ship and risk water flooding in
-The journey was around a year long

-The winds did "never cease to blow"

-From what we can tell they wasn't any way for the barges to communicate with each other



To me, there isn't much about that trip that sounds exciting, enjoyable, or relaxing. If I were on one of those barges I would be throwing a miserable fit. I would be annoyed, I would be grumpy, and I would be scared for the future. On a good day I might console myself with thoughts of "well, at least it will be worth it once we get to the promised land". The amazing thing is that that is not what any of those people did. In Ether 6:9-10 it says "And they did sing praises unto the Lord; yea...and when the night came, they did not cease to praise the Lord.". Personally, it would take the voyage being a paid production of a reality T.V. show that was also strictly a musical for me to even sing a note during the trip. Why? Because I lack patience. And that got me thinking, what is patience?


Patience is more than passive waiting,
it is actively finding ways to be happy now

 My whole life I thought of patience as waiting. We are patient in lines, at doctor's appointments, or while waiting for water to boil while fixing dinner. That is what came to mind when I thought of the word patience. But then I realized something; wasn't that just waiting? And I finally understood that  patience does not equate waiting. Anyone can wait. That takes no talent at all. Waiters come a dime a dozen. So what sets waiting apart from patience? I think its being like those people on the barges; its learning to work hard to be happy now and not wait to be happy when the future seems brighter. When we truly have hope in our hearts that not only allows us to wait through trials because we know the future will be better, it allows us to be patient in trials. And how does hope do that for us? I think it is because when we have hope for a better future we realize that there is a reason for the hard stuff in between. We realize that life isn't about "earning" good things by "suffering" bad things. We see that the bad things in life are what makes life so good because that is how we grow and that is how we become (2 Nephi 2: 11). When we see life that way we realize we are capable of so much more than just waiting for the bad to be over; we have it in us to enjoy and grow in the bad as we wait for the good. We have hope in ourselves that we have the ability to master any hard circumstance and say "come what may and love it". It is this concept that has made this my favorite scripture by Jacob, "Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves" (2 Nephi 10:23). We always have the choice to be happy now-and exercising that right it true patience.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have winced but not cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloodied but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears,
Looms but the horror of the shade.
And yet the menace of the years,
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
William Earnest Henley

Ether's Barges

I am nearly to the end of the Book of Mormon and there is always a little feeling of excitement for me as I complete reading this remarkable book. Right now I am reading in Ether, a record of a people that came to the America's soon after the fall of the Tower of Babel. I love reading about how they make their journey here to the promise land. The brother of Jared is asked to build barges "tight like unto a dish" (Ether 2:17). He faithfully builds these barges and then discovers he has two problems; no light and no air. He goes to the Lord to ask for his help. The Lord tells him to cut a hole on the top and bottom of the barges, that way, when they need air, they can unstop the hole and let air in. If water comes in instead, they were to just stop the hole up. The brother of Jared again faithfully completes the Lord's instructions, THEN he goes back and asks about the light. Our Savior doesn't tell him how to overcome this problem, he tells the brother of Jared "What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire...Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?" (Ether 2:23-25). The brother of Jared again faithfully follows the Lord's instructions. He thinks about it, cuts some stones out of the mountain, and returns humbly to the Lord and asks him to touch the stones and make them give off light. Then something amazing happens, the brother of Jared sees the finger of the Lord touch each stone, and, they give off light. After an incredible visitation of the pre-mortal Christ the brother of Jared again returns off the mountain to accomplish what the Lord has asked him to do-place the stones in the barges and then take a leap of faith, enter them, and trust the Lord will guide him and his family to the promise land. Of course, the journey was long and not easy, in fact, the "winds did never cease to blow" (Ether 6:8), but they blew always in the direction of the promise land, and 344 days later the Lord did as he promised, and every one of those barges made it safely to the land prepared for them-the promised land.

What a beautiful pattern for our own journey to the promise land-to live with our Heavenly Fater again. We all have taken the leap of Faith to be here on Earth and seek to be like our Father so that we can live with him some day. The brother of Jared has taught me some  powerful lessons about this journey:

1) When we have problems in life we go to our Heavenly Father, but we don't just ask for help, we willingly follow his advice no matter how hard or crazy the advice sounds. Personally I would have hoped for a better answer than "cut holes in your boat and open them when you need and just hope water doesn't spill in instead". But the brother of Jared didn't wait for an answer he wanted, he went and did.

2) Sometimes the Lord trusts us to come up with a solution. He may give us some guidance, but ultimately, He wants us to come up with a solution, and then come to him in Faith and ask Him to approve our solution. He will either approve it or tell us to keep searching, and when we do have a solution, He is avaliable to help us with it. It is these experience that build our Faith and build ourselves the most. The brother of Jared increased His faith from this that he could "not be kept back from beholding within the veil" (Ether 3:19)  and actually saw the finger and then the pre-mortal body of of Savior Jesus Christ.
3) Finally that we all must take a leap of Faith sometimes and get into the boat. There were 8 barges and none of them had any way of talking to each other and no way to steer in their journey, yet they got in the boat and "commended themselves unto the Lord their God" (Ether 6:4). We must all take leaps of Faith sometimes that are scary and sometimes long-lived, like 344 days long. BUT we will always end up where the Lord wants us to end up, and the journey will be far worth not only the destination, but what we ourselves have become because of the journey. Though the winds never ceased to blow, they blew towards the promise land. Our journey may not be easy, it may be very windy, but we can know that these trials are for our good and without them, we would never steer and move towards the promise land.
I know that the scriptures have great lessons for us to learn and that we can apply them to our lives with both Faith that the Lord can and Hope that He will perform these same miracles in our own lives. May we search the scriptures daily as we strive to progress on our own journey back to the presence of our loving and, might I add very anxious to see us again, Heavenly Father...