Just Cactus and Weeds

A while back when we were on a family vacation, my older son was suggesting where we might go for our next family trip.  He thought Arizona was a good idea, but my five-year-old son quickly opposed this, saying something like, “It is just cactus and weeds there!”  We had on a previous trip driven through a tiny portion of Arizona near St. George, and my son remembered that very small (and quite desolate) piece of Arizona he had seen.  To him, that was the whole of it—he had seen Arizona, he knew what was there, and he was not interested in going back for a visit.  He knew nothing of the red sandstone mesas of Monument Valley or the incredible surroundings of Lake Powell or all the things one could do in a metropolitan area like Phoenix with millions of people.  He mistook the small part he had seen for the whole, and in his naïve mind he couldn’t imagine there was anything there.

            As I’ve pondered his comment, I’ve realized that we are often like my son as we try to understand the Lord’s plan and the things He has in store for us.  We may look at some experience that the Lord gives us or a commandment we need to follow and, like my son, see only a small negative part that we focus on.  But we often don’t have the vision of where the Lord is really taking us or how it may impact us in the future.  As Paul said, “For now we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  I think we are often in the same shoes as the servant of Elisha who saw the enemy armies but could not see the angels of the Lord that were there ready to protect them: “Alas, my master! How shall we do?”  Elisha prayed that his eyes would be opened in order to see a vision of what the Lord was really doing, and he did.  In our dispensation the Lord gave these humbling words to the Prophet: “Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:40).  And in case we missed it, He said something similar in another revelation: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you; And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along” (Doctrine and Covenants 78:17-18).  When it comes to spiritual things, we are all just “little children” compared to where the Lord wants to take us and what He wants to reveal to us.  We don’t fully understand His plan and have to trust that we don’t see all things now, that we can obey and move forward in the gospel without perfect understanding of the blessings that await us.  As Alma taught, we are to “look forward with an eye of faith” (Alma 5:15).  Hopefully someday we can take my son to enjoy the majesty of the Grand Canyon and the many other places he would surely love to see in Arizona.  And likewise we shall surely experience one day that which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard” now, but which are “things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).