Pathfinding for the Blind

Reading through some General Conference talks, I found this little gem: 

"We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see." -President Boyd K. Packer

Some people see those who belong to a church and strive to keep God's commandments (even when we don't understand them) as being "blindly obedient." They think that we don't know what we should do, so we just do whatever the big guy upstairs says. And actually, they're partly right.

We don't always know what's best for us to do, so we do frequently rely on God for guidance. But we choose to follow God and the teachings of our church, not because we picked their names out of a hat, but because they've proven to be trustworthy sources of sound advice.

The way I see it, we're all pretty blind, whether we blindly follow trustworthy guides or whether we blindly blaze our own trail. Either way, we don't really know which way our path is taking us, so we need to have a little faith. The question is whether we'll put our faith in ourselves or whether we'll put our faith in God.

Now, those who don't know who God is, how good and wise He is, and that we can trust Him, would consider it foolish to put their faith in an unknown and possibly imaginary being rather than in themselves, and there is some wisdom in that. We live in a world where we have a lot of choices, and the welfare of our souls depends on the choices we make. And to make matters much more difficult, not all of the voices that pop into our heads come from God. Some of those thoughts come from the devil, and some of them come from our own imaginations. When you don't know which voice is whose, it would seem insane to listen to the many voices in your head, and it very well might be. Logically, it would be wiser to shut out all those voices and make decisions for yourself.

However, for those of us who know God, or at least are acquainted with Him and know that He exists and that He's wise and good, following Him makes much more sense than trying to find our own way. He knows of the things we need to seek or avoid, and He's kind enough to share that wisdom with us. By following Him, we can avoid the pitfalls we might have blindly stumbled into, and find the gems we otherwise would never have found.

We don't follow God because we're too blind to find our own path. We follow God because we can see that His path is better than ours.