Today has been a full day, but yesterday was even better. There are at least two things I could blog about concerning yesterday, one of which you might know about from following my Mom on Facebook, and the other, I haven't told anyone yet. Decisions, decisions.
I left the house at 4pm, planning to arrive at the campsite at 6. Realistically, carrying a heavy load of camping equipment, I probably should have expected to arrive at about 7. I don't know what time it was when I got close to my destination the first time. Having felt that I should have seen some signs by now, I asked someone for directions, and was told that my destination was across the river and back down the way I came a ways. So, I made my way to a bridge to cross to the other side of the river, unknowingly biking right by our camp site. I went back the way the man had told me quite a long way, all the while asking for directions, and no one could agree on what side of the river my destination was. By this time, the sun was beginning to set - about 7:30 or so. Eventually, I ended up at a point where I KNEW I was going the wrong way, so I pulled over, checked my maps (I kind of knew I was off the edge of my usual maps, but I checked anyway), and once again asked for directions. This time, I was told that the campsite was pretty much directly under a massive bridge - the bridge the first guy had told me to cross. Feeling foolish for having backtracked so far, I turned back toward the bridge (stopping to put my bike lights on, as the sun had set at this point, 8pm, or a little afterward) only to find that the camp site was not under this bridge.
Feeling very tired, very frustrated, and hopelessly lost, I began to vent my feelings to Joe in a text message (he had texted me about something, and I responded by confessing that I was terribly lost). I crossed the bridge again, mostly just because I didn't want to stop moving. I was pretty sure I was close to the camp site, and I needed to keep looking for it. As I crossed the bridge, I saw on the north side of the river a parking lot filled with cars, and I thought that that might be where I needed to go, so I made my way toward it and found a parking lot that was nearly completely empty. Thinking that I was too close to the bridge to be at the parking lot I had seen from it, I began to bike away from the bridge, and, as it turned out, directly away from the camp site I was looking for.
I probably would have gone on being lost for at least another hour if not that, just then, I was passed by a pick up truck that was headed the other direction, and I happened to notice that the truck was being driven by my bishop. I shouted out to him, turned my bike around, and he led me to the camp site. I arrived at my destination three hours after I thought I would, two hours after I could reasonably have expected to have, and five hours after leaving home. According to Google Maps, I biked about 32 miles - a distance they claim that an unburdened cyclist in excellent physical condition could travel in only about three hours.
So, what's the moral of the story? I took directions from I guy who didn't know what he was talking about, or at least didn't know that I was within 50 yards of where I was trying to go, and I went on a wild goose chase that took me at least two hours, exhausted me, caused my Mom and my brother to worry sick about me, and kept me from reaching the destination that I had practically already reached until after dark. When I finally got back to where I had started, I was lucky enough (or rather, blessed enough) to run into my bishop. I followed him and got where I wanted to go within five minutes.
In life, there are lots of people who think they know the best way to get to where you're trying to go, and if you follow the wrong people, you could end up biking around in circles for two hours. It's not that the people who mislead us are always bad people. The man who misled me was a very kind (but very wrong) person who gave me directions that he thought would get me where I wanted to go. Perhaps, in life, the people who get us lost are people who are lost themselves, and perhaps just haven't realized it yet. I hope he knew where HE was going, at least.
In contrast, when we follow the right people, such as the Prophet, the Apostles, and others who are inspired by the Spirit, we can find the peace and direction we're looking for that we won't find anywhere else. It'll probably still take more than five minutes to get where you're going, but you'll get there infinitely faster by following the prophets than you will by following those other guys, and some of the blessings of following the prophets, such as peace, can be felt right away. I knew, when I was following my bishop, that I wasn't lost anymore. I knew that he knew where we were going, and that I was finally going the right way. I didn't care if it took me another 30 minutes to get to the camp site. I was just glad that I knew I was going to get there, because I knew I was following the right guide.
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, since most of my audience is already LDS, but I think we could each stand to reflect on what we do on a daily and weekly basis, and ask ourselves whether it's bringing us closer to the Celestial Kingdom, whether it's taking us farther away, or whether it's causing us to just bike around in huge, two hour circles. Only by consistently following true prophets can we make real progress toward our eternal goals, whereas following others might lead us terribly far off track.
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