Our Spiritual Journey

At YM encampment a week and a half ago, I had the opportunity to lead a hike which one of the youth lovingly called the Ponder Wander. On the hike we discussed the progression through our journey and things we would encounter. We stopped along the way relating our hike to spiritual metaphors. These points included:

1. Starting our journey.
2. Nourishing ourselves.
3. Finding support for ourselves and then lending support to others.
4. Encountering diverging paths and recorrecting when we take the wrong path.
5. Being still.
6. Following our guide.
7. Returning home.

Today, the goal of my talk is to metaphorically hike through these same steps with you today:

1) Starting Our Journey

All of us start our journey at some point. For me it was when I read Proverbs 3:5-6. For many of the Nephites, it was listening to King Benjamin or Alma. In fact, Alma the Younger offers 42 soul-searching questions in Alma 5 that we should consider as we read next week’s chapters for come follow me. I will highlight a few of these questions throughout my talk as well as draw upon a couple talks from Elder Renlund including last conference and before he was an apostle.

Regardless whether you are beginning your spiritual journey or are well on your way, consider Alma’s question in verse 16, “I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?” These just might be some of the sweetest words ears can here. If you aren’t sure where to start, follow the Primary General President Susan H. Porter’s guideline to “Pray to know.” President Russell M. Nelson elaborates more on this invitation by stating that we should “pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father…And then listen!” Listen to what you feel in your heart and to thoughts that come to your mind. If that is still a struggle for you, just like physical trails made by those who have gone before us, we can take comfort in 

Is verse 14, Alma continues, “And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God?” Notice here that Alma is asking if they have been spiritually born of God AFTER they were already brethren of the church, meaning after they had been baptized. This leads to my next point.

After entering the path of the hike, we need constant nourishment (food and water to survive). Similarly, we need spiritual nourishment to give us the momentum we need to continue on our spiritual journey. This momentum doesn’t come immediately or even after day or two, instead, Elder Renlund and President Nelson have said, this “momentum is created ‘over a lifetime as we repeatedly embrace the doctrine of Christ.’ Elder Renlund continues, “enduring to the end is repeatedly and iteratively applying the other elements of the doctrine of Christ” which are faith, repentance, baptism or sacrament, and gift of the Holy Ghost.

Dale G. Renlund further illustrates the need for nourishment when he said, “Just as it is not healthy to defer eating all our food until Sunday and then binge our weekly allotment of nutrition, it is not spiritually healthy to restrict our testimony-nourishing behavior to one day in the week.” Instead, this should be a consistent daily practice.

This iterative process is highlighted by Alma the Younger in Alma 5:14, “And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” Have we continued in the doctrine of Christ, or have we forgot to nourish our spirits? If we haven’t felt this mighty change, maybe we need to take a step back and figure out how to start/restart the journey. For those of us who have felt this mighty change in heart, if we don’t feel the same now, what is getting in our way? We may need to do as Primary President Susan H. Porter encouraged in the last general conference which is, “Pray to grow.”

The promise of Elder Dale G. Renlund is that we can receive the spiritual nourishment we need “as we conscientiously partake of the sacrament” because “we invite the Holy Ghost into our lives, just like when we were baptized and confirmed.”

Just like having a hiking stick on a path can help us as we move up and down trails, we also need support on our spiritual journey. Those who can support us include family, friends, leaders, teachers, scriptures, prophets, the Holy Ghost, and Christ. These others will be our support in struggles, doubts, etc. 

Social media paints a façade of what it means to care about someone or even bear one another’s burdens. It makes us believe we have friends who care with all their likes, hearts, smiley faces, etc. However, I have found that those who really care are those who are helping pull me out of the creek when I have fallen into at least 6 inches deep in mud. Another issue with these platforms, is they enable us to compare ourselves showing how much better or worse we are than others. Both are terrible. As you have all may have heard, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Elder Renlund elaborates on this idea a little more when he said, “Comparing ourselves to others can lead us to make pernicious errors, especially if we conclude that we are more righteous than those who are struggling. Such a comparison is like drowning hopelessly in three meters of water, seeing someone else drowning in four meters of water, judging him a greater sinner, and feeling good about yourself. After all, we are all struggling in our own way. None of us earns salvation.” I would add that the opposite is true that looking at someone drowning in 3 meters of water when we are in 4 and saying look how good they have it is also a problem. We are both still drowning!!!

Primary President Susan H. Porter encouraged in the last general conference which is, “Pray to show.”

Now despite good support and proper nourishment, we sometimes come to a crossroads on our path, and we must make a choice. Unfortunately, we sometimes make the wrong choice. On my hike with the young men, I took them on the wrong path (although intentionally) and this path was slightly overgrown and even had a type of nettle that a boy tripped and fell into. Despite the foreboding signs on the path we follow, sometimes we continue to trek forward telling ourselves lies to make ourselves feel better. We may let our pride push us further in the wrong direction until we get completely lost. Eventually, the path with the boys dead ended, and I asked them what to do now and they said, “We turn around.”

In Elder Renlund’s 2009 conference address he recounts this story.

In 1980 we moved as a family across the street from the hospital where I trained and worked. I worked every day, including Sundays. If I finished my Sunday work by 2:00 p.m., I could join my wife and daughter and drive to church for meetings that began at 2:30.

One Sunday late in my first year of training, I knew that I would likely finish by 2:00. I realized, however, that if I stayed in the hospital just a little longer, my wife and daughter would depart without me. I could then walk home and take a needed nap. I regret to say that I did just that. I waited until 2:15, walked home slowly, and lay down on the couch, hoping to nap. But I could not fall asleep. I was disturbed and concerned. I had always loved going to church. I wondered why on this day the fire of testimony and the zeal that I had previously felt were missing.

I did not have to think long. Because of my schedule, I had become casual with my prayers and scripture study. I would get up one morning, say my prayers, and go to work. Often day blended into night and into day again before I would return home late the following evening. I would then be so tired that I would fall asleep before saying a prayer or reading the scriptures. The next morning the process began again. The problem was that I was not doing the basic things I needed to do to keep my mightily changed heart from turning to stone.

I got off the couch, got on my knees, and pleaded with God for forgiveness. I promised my Heavenly Father that I would change. The next day I brought a Book of Mormon to the hospital. On my to-do list that day, and every day since, were two items: praying at least morning and evening and reading in the scriptures. Sometimes midnight would come, and I would have to quickly find a private place to pray. Some days my scripture study was brief. I also promised Heavenly Father that I would always try to get to church, even if I missed part of the meeting. Over the course of a few weeks, the zeal returned and the fire of testimony burned fiercely again. I promised to never again fall into the spiritual death trap of being casual about these seemingly small actions and thereby jeopardizing things of an eternal nature, regardless of circumstances.

On our spiritual journey, we will inevitably need to turn around like Elder Renlund and that process is called repentance. Elder Renlund used a kayak analogy to teach this, “We will undoubtedly have times when we flip over in our kayaks and find ourselves in deep water. Through repentance, we can get back on top and continue, no matter how many times we have fallen off.” If you look in the Bible Dictionary, the first thing it says about repentance is that it is a change of mind. Then it continues saying that repentance gives us a “fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world.” Who doesn’t want a fresh view? I think all of us at some point do. So why are we so scared of repentance?

In his 1980 devotional address, Elder Holland emphasizes why we should rejoice in repentance, “Repentance is not a foreboding word. It is following faith, the most encouraging word in the Christian vocabulary. Repentance is simply the scriptural invitation for growth and improvement and progress and renewal. You can change! You can be anything you want to be in righteousness.” 

“I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?” Did you notice the words “look up.” With guilt, we know we do something wrong, we feel guilty and we try to reform our lives. This guilt is good as it motivates us to look up to God as we repent; however, some of us turn our guilt into shame by looking down telling ourselves that we are bad and we can’t change. This is exactly what Satan wants us to believe. Satan tries to keep us from looking up to Christ who is standing there with open arms.

This brings me to my final point. As we continue on the trail, sometimes the best thing we can do is hire a guide. A guide that can tell us which directions to go and dangers to avoid. With the youth, I was their guide, they put their trust in me, and we eventually made it back learning throughout the process.

On our spiritual journey, we don’t have to go on our own. God give us a guide. Elder Renlund discusses a kayak excursion he did with his wife and daughter and he let his hubris get in the way, he recounts:

As we started out, I rowed faster than Ruth and Ashley. After a while, I was far ahead of them. Though proud of my heroic pace, I stopped paddling and waited for them to catch up. A large wave—about 13 centimeters—hit the side of my kayak and flipped me over into the water. By the time I had turned the kayak upright and struggled to get back on top, Ruth and Ashley had passed me by, but I was too winded to resume paddling. Before I could catch my breath, another wave, this one truly enormous—at least 20 centimeters—hit my kayak and flipped me over again. By the time I managed to right the kayak, I was so out of breath I feared I would not be able to climb on top.

Seeing my situation, the guide rowed over and steadied my kayak, making it easier for me to climb on top. When he saw that I was still too breathless to row on my own, he hitched a towrope to my kayak and began paddling, pulling me along with him. Soon I caught my breath and began paddling adequately on my own. He let go of the rope, and I reached the first island without further assistance. Upon arrival, I flopped down on the sand, exhausted.

After the group had rested, the guide quietly said to me, “Mr. Renlund, if you just keep paddling, maintaining your momentum, I think you’re going to be fine.” I followed his advice as we paddled to the second island and then back to our starting point. Twice the guide rowed by and told me I was doing great. Even larger waves hit my kayak from the side, but I was not flipped over.

By consistently paddling the kayak, I maintained momentum and forward progress, mitigating the effect of waves hitting me from the side. The same principle applies in our spiritual lives. We become vulnerable when we slow down and especially when we stop. If we maintain spiritual momentum by continually “rowing” toward the Savior, we are safer and more secure because our eternal life depends on our faith in Him.

The guide reminded him to keep rowing and pushing forward. On our spiritual journey we are encouraged to do the same and make course corrections when needed. Elder Renlund continues, “The momentum produced by living the doctrine of Christ not only powers the transformation of our divine nature into our eternal destiny but also motivates us to help others in appropriate ways.”