Fix what's broken!

1 Nephi 16

Nephi tells us that his brothers take his teachings hard.  In fact he says “the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.”   Is this not the way it usually is?  This is why it is so hard to speak the truth to those who don’t get it.  They lash out and it gets ugly.  Yet there is so much evidence that keeping the commandments will bring joy into a person’s life. 

I’m always intrigued when I read about the Liahona.  It is simple, yet so profoundly helpful to them.  So too is the Holy Ghost so helpful, yet we sometimes don’t get it.

How can we have the guidance of the Holy Ghost in our lives?  V32 says to be humble and give thanks - a simple enough thing to do.  Am I thankful enough?  Do I remember to be thankful even for the trials?  As I read the trial of them losing the spring in their bows and Nephi breaking his, I couldn’t help but think of how they dealt with these trials.  Notice all the brothers, even Nephi, had bow issues.  What do the brothers do?  Complain, murmur and more complaining.  What does Nephi do?  He goes into action.  He makes a bow and arrow from the materials available.  Then what?  He goes to his father – who is a prophet – and asks where he should go.  Is this not a pattern for our lives?  Sometimes we break our bow.  We don’t mean to.  It just happens.  Do we sit on the ground and cry and complain because somebody didn’t make the bow right in the first place?  No!  We must figure a way to fashion another one.

What is the bow I’m referring to?  How about our lives?  Sometimes we are foolish and we break our lives to the point we feel we cannot go on.  Or maybe we have an accident that alters our lives and we feel we are broken.  It’s easy to give up and accept this fate, but we don’t have to.  Look at the tools that are available to us and fashion a new life – maybe (and probably) even a better one.  Why better?  Because we will have had the trial that strengthened us.   We will have grown in that trial and learned great things.  What?  We learn that we can do hard things.  We can change.  I’ve been there and know this is truth.  If I could teach my children anything it would be that our trials shape our future.  Maybe not just the trial, but how we deal with those trials.  Do we sit down and cry and give up?  Or do we look around at the tools available and fix what’s broken.  It will make all the difference in the world if we choose to fix what’s broken.