This is probably going to take me a while to get to, but hang in there with me as I take a bit of a tour down memory lane….
About 10 years ago I found myself hurtling at break neck speed down the side of a glacier in the middle of Alaska straight towards some horribly sharp, rocky crags thrusting up out of the icy snow, and looming larger and larger by the millisecond.
I was on a business trip for Intel in Anchorage, and after finishing up work for the day I met up with Brian for a hike we had already planned up Flattop Mountain. As one of the most climbed peaks in Alaska, the trail at the bottom was easily followed. However, as we went higher the markings became more faint and we eventually lost the trail completely in all the rock and giant boulders. Eventually we picked our way to the top.
Soon after arriving at the summit, the weather started to sour. On top of that we were running out of daylight since it was still early in the spring. From our new vantage point on the top of the mountain we saw what looked like an easier, much more direct route back down than the one we had made for ourselves coming up. We thought we were well prepared and had some experience from Mt. Timpanogos; the choice seemed obvious, and off we started down an enormous glacier hanging tenaciously to the sheer rocky side of that mountain.
Several years prior to this experience, just after I had returned home from my mission in Spain, I was with Scott as he was just barely learning how to drive. We had gone to the parking lot at the community college just down the street from the house. The parking lot was completely abandoned and seemed to stretch forever. As I remember it, Scott was just getting the hang of the car, how the controls work, etc. and in the course of doing so was driving over the top of all the painted lines in the lot marking off the individual parking spaces.
I had Scott pause for a moment and we talked about the importance of establishing good habits early. Of course today Scott is a much greater philosopher than I. Back then we discussed how the seemingly insignificant choices we make can powerfully, when repeated over and over again, set a pattern to our lives. Although the changes may come slowly, we theorized that it wouldn’t be too long before that initial choice to ignore the lines painted in the parking lot would lull us into choosing to not fully stop at every stop sign when the situation seemed appropriate, and from there to only stopping when a policemen was around, etc. Soon enough those poor judgments lead to others, and before we know it, now we’re running red lights with consequences that can loom larger than the rocky crags on the side of an Alaskan peak.
The simple truth is that all of us make mistakes. All of us have developed habits that keep us from enjoying the full blessings that God has for us. The apostle Paul stated the obvious for us to make sure we didn’t miss it, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
The more important point here however is that our Savior, Jesus Christ, paid the price for those mistakes we make, and has provided a way up and out. To fully repent and receive forgiveness for those mistakes, we must give them up.
Our living Prophet today, President Monson just recently gave us this counsel:
“How fragile life, how certain death. We do not know when we will be required to leave this mortal existence. And so I ask, ‘What are we doing with today?’ If we live only for tomorrow, we’ll eventually have a lot of empty yesterdays. Have we been guilty of declaring, ‘I’ve been thinking about making some course corrections in my life. I plan to take the first step—tomorrow?’ With such thinking, tomorrow is forever. Such tomorrows rarely come unless we do something about them today.”
As all of us are fully and poignantly aware, that counsel should ring true to each one of us. “What are we doing with today?”
Going back to my beginning story, my brand new Nike insulated Gore-Tex boots with Vibram soles were still no match for that glacier. After my first misstep I was sliding down that glacier faster than I knew how to think. I tried to use my bare hands to claw through the hardened ice that had caused my fall and now would not yield to my attempts to slow my descent. The sight of the black, razor sharp rocks jutting up through the ice just ahead of me caused a terrible panic. I continued my frantic flailing to no avail.
Then, just as suddenly as the slip at the beginning of my slide, my foot got turned around and the toe of my boot quite providentially broke through the thick layer of encrusted ice. The speed of my fall drove my leg straight down through the glacier until that leg was buried to the hip so that I nearly became a human popsicle. My new struggle to free my leg from the grasp of the glacier I gladly welcomed as my life had been preserved.
Our Father in Heaven has a perfect vantage point. His love for us knows no bounds. He sees where we are in our struggles and knows how to rescue us. The choices and habits we’ve allowed ourselves to follow have in a way entombed us in our own private glaciers. My belief is that He is constantly striving to get through to us. When He breaks through the hardened crust we have allowed to form around us, we need to wake up, recognize the “intrusion” as a rescue effort on our behalf, and determine to make those needed course corrections.
So what does a little boy naked on the front porch yearn for? To live worthy of my amazing family and to continue those cherished relationships forever and ever. I’m going to start today.
