Yesterday, Dad and I went to Home Depot to get a grounding rod. We were going to use it to ground some wires that needed to be grounded in order to comply with some city code or some company's policy. Honestly, I wasn't sure why we had to drive the rod into the ground, but Dad seemed to know what he was doing, so I didn't question it.
I started hammering the rod in, which wasn't too difficult since the ground was pretty soft, but after a few feet, the rod wouldn't go any deeper. We thought maybe we had hit a pipe, so we moved the rod and tried again. It got stuck again, at about the same level. Trying a third spot, we decided that we had probably hit hardpan, which Dad said meant that there was a layer of clay to get through, so I kept hammering at the rod (making absolutely no progress) while Dad went inside to find out whether we were actually doing this right.
We weren't. It turns out that you can't just hammer in your own grounding rod. The city, or some professional-type people, have to do it. So instead, we're going to run a wire from one side of the house to the other to connect the grounding rod we already have to the wire that needs to be grounded. In the meantime, the grounding rod we got at the Home Depot was useless to us, so I tried to pull it out.
It wouldn't budge. The same difficulty that I had trying to get it to go any deeper also prevented me from pulling the rod back out. I tried jiggling it. We tried getting the ground wet. I put all of my strength into pulling the rod back up, but it just wouldn't move.
So now Dad has a grounding rod stuck fast in his yard, which we never really needed in the first place.
The moral of the story is to make sure you know what you're doing before you do anything stupid, or at least make sure the person you're listening to actually knows what they're talking about. There are lots of people that give advice, and some of them have their own TV or radio shows, like Dr Phil, Dr Oz, or Dr Laura, but just because they're popular and widely-believed, that doesn't mean that they actually know what's best.
My dad knows a good deal about electricity. At least, he knows a lot more about it than I do. So I was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about when he said we needed to drive a grounding rod into the ground - but he didn't. I followed his lead because I figured that he knew what we were doing, but we were both wrong, and it ended up costing us the better part of a day and a lot of frustration. So try to make sure that the people whose counsel you take are actually dispensing good counsel.
In our church, we listen to our teachers and our Bishops, our Apostles, and our Prophets, and almost all of them are inspired people giving heaven-sent advice, but we don't have to take their word for it, as I had taken Dad's word about the grounding rod. We can (and should) go directly to the Source. In our church, we're encouraged to not just take our leaders' word that what they're saying is true. We're encouraged to pray about it and ask God if it's true.
I'm often guilty of not doing that. I follow my leaders' and my own advice often without stopping to ask God if that's really what I should be doing. I followed my dad's directions yesterday without questioning them, and all we have to show for it is a metal stick stuck deep in some mud. I want to get more than that out of my eternal progression, so maybe I ought to take a moment every once in a while and make sure I'm actually headed where God wants me to go.
I trust the Prophets and Apostles. I trust my Bishop. I trust the teachers in my ward. They all seem like wise, intelligent people. Then again, I trusted my dad, too. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask God if the advice we're getting is actually good advice, just to double-check. It might save us the trouble of trying to pull a rod out later on.
1 comment:
I have seen that all too often, people, especially some guy people??, take a little bit of knowledge, their own reason, and/or advice from friends and think that they know more than they do without really checking it out. Sometimes it bites you.
Recently I reviewed events in Exodus. If I got this right in my admittedly quick review - Aaron and his sons went up on the mountain with Moses and SAW the God of Israel. They were ordained high priests and robed in holy garments. After all that, the "boys" performed unauthorized sacrifices so much in violation of holy law that they were struck dead and Aaron was commanded not to even mourn for them. And Aaron, AFTER his special experiences, gathered the jewelry of the people of Israel and made a golden calf.
What did I get from this?
1) Even the very elect can be deceived. We need to study, and pray, and check back frequently with The Boss lest we get off on the wrong track.
2) While we have been promised that the prophet will never be allowed to lead us astray, I don't think we have that promise for all our leaders. Although I esteem and trust them, we should, as you say, pray for confirmation about our leaders' calls and counsel. While I think it quite unlikely that most of our leaders will lead us false, we do have a personal responsibility to find out what is right and true. If we doubt or question, especially, we should pray and compare what we are told with what the scriptures say. Above all, we are entitled to ask and to receive answers if we are sincere.
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