When Mists of Darkness Arise

When I was a missionary in northeastern Brazil, I occasionally received assignments to move to a different city. On those transfer days, one of the first priorities was to find out which bus would take me to the new area I had been assigned to. I don’t really miss the days of navigating crowded bus stops with two massive suitcases. But, in the heaving and bustling and waiting, it was always a relief to step onto the right bus and settle in for the ride. At that point, even though the passing landscape was unfamiliar, I knew that I was going to the right place, that, regardless of where that bus went along the way, I would end up where I was supposed to be.

In the early part of the Book of Mormon, the prophet Lehi has a vision: he sees a tree (representative of the love of God as manifest in the Savior) at the end of a path. Along the path, he sees a rod of iron (representative of the word of God) which leads to the tree, and he sees “numberless concourses of people” (1 Nephi 8:21) walking towards the tree. As they do, there arises “a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path [do] lose their way” (1 Nephi 8:23); however, others on the path catch hold of the rod of iron and “press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron” until they arrive at the tree and eat the fruit (1 Nephi 8:24). While mists of darkness obscure the view of the blessings at the end of the path, those who hold to the rod, to the word of God, eventually succeed in pushing through the darkness to their destination and ultimate rest.

In Brazil, I didn’t need to know the whole route to a new area in order to get to the right place: I only needed to know which bus to get on. In a similar way, Lehi’s vision is a reminder that we don’t need to know the whole route through our lives in order to move forward: we only need to know which path to get on.

A former teacher of mine explained that everything in our lives that really matters—career, marriage, self-esteem, peace, etc.—lies along the path of obedience. God would not set up our lives so that we would have to break His commandments in order to end up where we want to be. If we really want to enjoy the happiness He has in store for us, obedience is the way to get there. Whether or not we really know everything we will face along the way, we have the assurance that, if we hold to the word of God, we will end up enjoying the fruits of His love for each one of us. Just as every bus displays where it’s headed, the path of obedience, marked by the rod of iron, clearly leads to our deepest hopes. The trick for us is to stay the course when those mists of darkness arise, obscuring the destination from view for a season.

After he reports his father’s vision, Nephi explains that the Lord has given him a commandment to make two sets of historical records. While Nephi complies with the command, he confesses, “[T]he Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not” (1 Nephi 9:5). Perhaps as I sometimes felt, knowing I was on the right bus but also not recognizing any of my immediate surroundings, Nephi knew that obeying the Lord’s commands would get him where he wanted to be—even if he didn’t understand the ultimate purpose for each specific commandment. For Nephi, it wasn’t necessary to know exactly where each step would take him along the way: he only needed to know that the Lord would never direct him astray, for, as he wrote, “[T]he Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words” (1 Nephi 9:6).

Knowing Enough

There are…days when we feel inadequate and unprepared, when doubt and confusion enter our spirits, when we have difficulty finding our spiritual footing. Part of our victory as disciples of Christ is what we do when these feelings come.

Neil L. Andersen

I can only imagine how Peter must have felt in the minutes and hours following Jesus’ Ascension. At the conclusion of years of tutelage in the Master’s presence and with angels asking him now what he was doing looking up into heaven, the future of the Church must have yawned before the chief apostle. I imagine everything must have felt very quiet. With the benefit of a couple thousand years of hindsight, we can see the victory that came to that disciple as he carried on in the face of those feelings. But to him, it all must have seemed daunting. Where even to begin?

In some of His final instructions, Jesus explained, “It is not for you to know the times of the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:7 – 8). In those words, I see the Savior saying that His hand-selected servants weren’t going to know everything but that they wouldn’t have to know everything to be successful. Even with an incomplete knowledge of the Plan of God, they would be empowered to carry out their part of that plan successfully.

There are times in my life when, perhaps like it was for the post-Ascension apostles, heaven falls quiet and the future looms inscrutably before me. At such times, I have found myself unsure of the future and maybe a little unfulfilled by the past. Yes, I have seen the hand of God moving through my life before, but it becomes harder to see now. The familiar feelings of faith seem to wane—not in the sense that I abandon my faith, but in the sense that it becomes something I know or remember more than feel. I wonder whether I can really face whatever lies ahead. It is one thing to do the right thing when it feels right and feels good. It is quite another thing to do what I know is right when there are no immediate emotional rewards.

At such times, I can’t help but think that everything would be fixed if I only knew more—if only the Lord would be more transparent about His plan for my life. I want to see the whole vision, the times of the seasons that are reserved for His knowledge. When heaven is quiet, I sometimes hear the words of Elder Neil L. Andersen: “At times, the Lord’s answer will be, ‘You don’t know everything, but you know enough’—enough to keep the commandments and to do what is right.” At first, Peter might not have thought he knew enough: he went back to his fishing boats until Christ reminded Him that he had a responsibility to feed Christ’s sheep (John 21). That simple nudge wasn’t much, but it was enough for Peter to proceed—even to the point that people brought the sick into the streets “that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them” (Acts 5:15).

But what if Peter had failed to act on the little that he did know? What if he had been stuck in the bitter weeping that followed his three-time denial of the Christ? What if he had insisted that the Lord tell him everything before he agreed to get to work?

Elder Andersen taught, “Faith is not only a feeling; it is a decision.” If we only live our faith when it feels pleasant and easy, our faith is at the mercy of our turbulent emotions: our trust in an unchanging God, then, becomes as fluid and unstable as our mood. There may be times when it feels as if the Lord has ascended and left us behind, as if our best spiritual days are behind us. But not only is that false, it is also no excuse to quit doing what we know is right. Peter did not quit, even when it might have seemed that his best days were behind him. Because he persisted, trusting in the Lord’s power, he accomplished more in the Lord’s service than he could ever have thought possible.

God’s Reassuring Light

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,” we read in Proverbs; “and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5 – 6). Thus, embedded in the injunction to trust the Lord is the promise that, as we do so, He will lead us where we need to go. This sort of divine path-directing is evident throughout the scriptures: as the children of Israel fled Egypt, “the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light” (Exodus 13:21); while Peter was praying on a housetop, he saw a vision prefiguring the preaching to the Gentiles, and then “the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them” (Acts 10:19 – 20); after the Lord commanded the prophet Lehi to gather his family and journey to a promised land, He also gave the prophet a sort of compass that “pointed the way whither [they] should go in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 16:10).

Truly, as Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf once taught: “[T]hough we may feel lost in the midst of our current circumstances, God promises the hope of His light—He promises to illuminate the way before us and show us the way out of darkness.” I have experienced that guiding light: I can recall moments when I was filled with a certainty that God had illuminated the path before me. However, I’ve come to learn that, while God’s light is always available to warm our hearts and enlighten our minds, it doesn’t always point the way. That doesn’t mean it’s gone, though—just that His light sometimes works in different ways at different times in our lives. If we live by the expectation that God is only working for our good when He is lighting up our path, we set ourselves up to feel forgotten and neglected when the way before us feels more uncertain than clear.

Consider, then, the Book of Mormon’s account of a group of people led by Jared and his brother (the Jaredites). Jared’s (unnamed) brother receives instructions from the Lord to prepare a little fleet of barges to carry the Jaredites across the ocean to a promised land, so, being the valiant servant that he is, Jared’s brother gets to work. The barges are built to be water-tight: the seas would be rough, and the barges would often end up completely submerged for periods of time. Under such conditions, as I’ve written about before, there could be no windows or fires, so the brother of Jared crafts some clear stones and asks the Lord to touch them with His finger so that they give light to the people in the barges (Ether 2 – 3).

“Thus,” the Book of Mormon tells us, “the Lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women, and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness” (Ether 6:3). But it’s important, I think, to note that, even while the barges “were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind” (Ether 6:6), the lighted stones only illuminated what was inside the barges. In this nearly year-long journey, the light which God had provided illuminated neither the Jaredites’ direction nor their destination. For all they knew, they could have been stuck, could have been going in circles, or could have been headed to the wrong place altogether—but, in all that uncertainty, they did know that God had given them light, a light they no doubt used to cook, to take care of their animals, to worship together, and to conduct the rest of their daily business.

All the while, “the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind” (Ether 6:8). So, with enough divinely given light to get them through the day-to-day, the Jaredites must have felt a confidence that God was invested in their successful journey, that He was, in fact, controlling those fierce winds that drove them ever onward.

Lately, I have been feeling much more like the Jaredites than like the children of Israel. The way ahead is not clearly defined, and it feels as though I only have enough light to do my homework for today, to cook my dinner, and to do my laundry. The bigger picture—the final destination—is hidden from view. If I had not learned recently about the way God’s light blessed the Jaredites, I would certainly feel abandoned to some extent: why would God lead me this far only to cut me loose? The short answer is that He wouldn’t. The slightly longer answer is that, sometimes, the Lord shows us where to go so that we can learn to steer our ships in faith. Other times, though, He prefers to steer the ship Himself, so He gives us only enough light to see where we are and to remind us that He’s there. In these cases, our job is not so much to figure out our destination but is, rather, to trust in the Lord and to stay in the ship.

Ultimately, in times of relative darkness, our limited portion of light is no signal that God has lost interest, no sign that we are forgotten. If anything, it means that He has taken a more direct role in guiding our lives and steering us towards our destinations. Therefore, rather than worry and waver in times such as these, we can, like the Jaredites, “thank and praise the Lord all the day long” (Ether 6:9) for the daily packets of light that He sends our way even as He personally carries us towards brighter days.

The Shadow of Doubt

While at college in Provo, Utah, I sometimes drove to the Latter-day Saint temple in the early morning. During the summer months, I loved to watch the sun rise over the quiet mountains, fringing the oaks and maples with gold and forcing me to squint through the windshield on my eastward drive to the temple. However, I always reached a point along my route where I crossed into the shadow of the mountains and into a part of town where the sun had not yet risen and where the dull, green trees shivered in the remaining malaise of the night before. Driving in the shade seemed to dampen my enthusiasm just a little, and it always amazed me that, in a matter of a few minutes, I could drive from a vision of a glorious sunrise to a disquieting place where the new day did not yet exist.

It might seem silly that I had any emotional reaction at all to driving through the morning shade, but I’ve started to recognize that my experiences on those morning drives parallel experiences that I’ve had with my faith. That is to say, I have experienced times when I stood, as it were, in the bright light of the rising sun, confident in my faith, in my God, and in myself—and I have also experienced times when I have found myself in shadow, confident in very little. Often in times of transition—placing myself in new situations, facing new challenges, or chasing new opportunities—the light that illuminated the way before me vanished, becoming abruptly and inexplicably absent. At times such as those, I have passed into the shadows of mountains, into the shadows of doubt, where it seemed that the once-bright light of faith could only have been a dream or a delusion.

Experience, though, has taught me that that darkness is never the final destination. Speaking to those who pass through the very real and sometimes terrifying shadows of life, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf declared, “God’s light is real. It is available to all!” He then went on to promise, “The very moment you begin to seek your Heavenly Father, in that moment, the hope of His light will begin to awaken, enliven, and ennoble your soul. The darkness may not dissipate all at once, but as surely as night always gives way to dawn, the light will come.” In other words, we may not always see the light that inspired our faith, but that doesn’t mean that the light is gone. Once we begin again to look for it and to trust in it, God’s light will illuminate our lives once more.

It would have been ridiculous for me to assume, once I had driven into the shadow of the mountains, that the sun had disappeared, that morning had changed its mind and decided not to come: the sun wasn’t gone. It was still there and still rising. The only thing that had changed was that I had moved. Even though I had gone east for a good reason, moving put me in a place where I could no longer see the sun or its light. Of course, I knew that the sun still existed, and I was never surprised to find that the it had risen the rest of the way by the time that I left the temple.

For some reason, though, it seems much easier to discount our personal faith and beliefs when life obscures their brilliance. When difficulties arise, it might not take very much for us to abandon our faith as something outmoded, imaginary, or useless—but I know that surrendering faith in any degree can be a dangerous, discouraging thing to do. I’ve found my faith to be an essential component of my happiness, and I know that God’s light is as constant as the sun’s. Sometimes, we move—even for very good reasons—to places where we cannot see His light, but that does not mean that it is gone. Just as the sun always finished rising over the Utah mountains, God’s light will always rise over the opposition we face in this life.

In the coming weeks, I hope to discuss different ways in which our faith can be challenged and to highlight ways in which we can always decide to trust in God’s light even when it isn’t readily visible. Regardless of our circumstances, no matter how tall the obscuring mountains or how dark the shadows of doubt, we can always choose faith. And we must choose faith because faith alone is the source of that hope which “maketh an anchor” to all our souls (Ether 12:4).