The Wrong Road

There's a new Mormon Messages video! Those are (almost) always perfect for sharing here. Let's watch it and see what it says.





Wow, what a great perspective! And how many times have we been in a similar situation? We receive an inspiration to do something and it doesn't work out the way we think it should. In these cases, it may simply be that God knows better than we do, and He steers us down a certain path, knowing exactly what'll happen if we go down that road, and that that outcome will work out to be in everyone's best interest.

In this case, God knew that Elder Holland (though he may not have been Elder Holland at that time) would turn back once it was clear that the right path was the wrong path, and he'd take the left road, now knowing with a reassuring certainty, that he was on the road home.

But what if Elder Holland had been more trusting back then? What if, having receive heavenly direction that he was to go to the right, he went to the right, and stayed on that road, even when it seemed to dead end? What if, when he got to that point, he told himself "God told you that this was the road you were to take. It must be the right path. Let's keep going"? Well, if he had had that much certainty in a spiritual prompting (which I'm not sure many of us do), God probably would have led him down the correct path in the first place, knowing that Elder Holland would know that he was on the divinely chosen correct path.

To be fair to Elder Holland, the experience happened a while ago, and if I know anything about what Elder Holland is like now, his faith in God is absolutely unshakable. He is very confident in the things that he knows, and he knows that God is a God of truth, and that He will not lead us astray. The Elder Holland of today would follow whatever path God prompted him to take, even if it led to certain death.

But God knows not all of us are quite that trusting. We trust more in our eyes and in our ears than we do in the feelings of our hearts. If God told us to go down a certain path (if we even feel the prompting at all), we'll maybe say to ourselves "I've got a good feeling about this path. Call it a hunch, but it's worth a shot. Let's try it and see how it goes." And if, shortly after starting, it looks like things aren't going the way we had hoped, we might say to ourselves, "I guess my hunch was wrong," and try another path.

As Elder Holland showed in his story, that's not always a bad thing. God works with what He's given. In  recent General Conference, Elder Holland said, "Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it." And perhaps one of the ways He deals with it is by pointing us down a less-than-perfect path, knowing that our less-than-perfect faith won't allow us to go astray for long, and soon enough, we'll choose a better path, with a more-sure knowledge that we know what we're doing.

However, this example is not the ideal. The best way this situation could be handled (if I understand all the principles involved correctly) is to study it out, make a choice, pray about it, then follow your choice unless you get a prompting telling you otherwise. Oh, and this may be a test of your faith and diligence, so unless you start feeling a warning in your heart, stick with what you've chosen to do. While it's important to use your head and figure things out on your own, it's also important to trust God and His promptings, probably more than you trust your own logic.

Of course, there are other reasons why God may lead us down a less-optimal path, besides the reason of showing us that this path is less-optimal. Sometimes, and I know a lot of you won't want to hear this (I certainly don't), sometimes, smooth-sailing isn't what'll be really good for us. Maybe God leads us to face hardship because those hardships will make us stronger and/or teach us valuable life lessons.

Another reason God might lead us down the "wrong road" is so we can help others. There wasn't anyone else in Elder Holland's story, but what if there was? What if, when they got to the dead end, they found someone whose car was broken down, who was stranded, and Elder Holland was able to give them a ride back to town, while the one whose car had broken down could give him more direct directions of how to get there. God loves to work miracles through us, and if we have to go on a slight detour to make that possible, that's what it takes.

I guess the moral of the story is to trust God. If His promptings seem to lead us down the wrong road, we need to keep trusting Him. He knows what He's doing, and He has His reasons for everything He does our prompts us to do.

I've had an experience where it fell to me to take care of a black pit bull, and I made a mistake that God must have known I was going to make, and that no one else in my household would have made. But God knew it was going to happen, so He pulled a few strings and it all worked out very well - miraculously well - in the end. I'm not going to say that that was the best thing that could have happened, because it certainly didn't feel like it at the time, but God's plan has already taken into account all of our failings. God knew I would make that mistake, so He mercifully turned that mistake I made into a good thing. Was there a better way that all could have happened? Probably. Was I in a position where I would feel, understand, and then act on God's promptings? Probably not, or God might have directed me to do something different. Or maybe my mistake was part of the plan, because it'd teach to have more faith in God and His wisdom.

God knows better than we do. He knows which paths are best (and for what reasons). He knows what we'll do if He tells us to go right. He knows what we'll do and how we'll feel about it if He tells us to go left. Sometimes, He knows that we'll make the right decision. Sometimes, He sets up a learning experience out of knowing that we won't. We shouldn't let encountering a learning experience, or even being led to face a challenging learning experience, shake our faith in God's directions. God knows what's best, and if He feels that it's best the we stumble and struggle for a little while, we need to trust that He's right, that that stumbling, that struggling, will help to make us stronger, better people, and will ultimately work out for our good and for the good of others. Sometimes the "wrong road" is the right road. I know and I trust that God will never truly lead us astray.