The Rail Journey

I was reminded today of this quote from President Hinckley that I really like: “[The fact is] most putts don’t drop.  Most beef is tough.  Most children grow up to be just people.  Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration.  Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise….  Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.  The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.”  There is much that we can complain about in our journey in life, just as a train ride is full of the inconveniences he mentioned.  But, according to President Hinckley, the way to enjoy life despite the drudgery that can easily set in is to find what we can be grateful for and seek enjoy the ride no matter how bumpy.

                As I think about how this principle is portrayed in the scriptures, Nephi’s experience on the ship is the first to come to mind.  It was certainly a journey in which he could have been complaining.  His brothers tied him up for four days during a “great and terrible tempest” and by the time they finally let him go his wrists “had swollen exceedingly; and also [his] ankles were much swollen, and great was the soreness thereof.”  Despite what must have been simply a horrendous day, he told us, “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:15-16).  In other words, instead of focusing on what was wrong with the journey, he simply thanked and praised the Lord that he could have the trip at all.

                Paul to me seems to be another one who was unflappable in the face of difficulty and was full of gratitude to the Lord for the experiences he had.  He told the Colossians to be “rooted and built up in [Christ], and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:7).  He was indeed one who abounded with thanksgiving; he frequently told the Saints in letters that he thanked the Lord for them (see for example Romans 1:8, 1 Corinthians 1:4, Ephesians 1:16).  Near the end of his life when he wrote to Timothy from prison (and in what we assume are the last words that we have from him) he expressed gratitude even though he was in bonds: “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day” (2 Timothy 1:3).  He faced his challenges with gratitude for the Lord, or, in other words, he found a way to see the “beautiful vistas” despite the “cinders and jolts”.  He, Nephi, and others in the scriptures are example to us as we try to see what we have instead of what we don’t and thank the Lord for His bounteous blessings on our journey.