Blessed by Barriers

In the talk Blessed and Happy Are Those Who Keep the Commandments of God, Elder Von G. Keetch share the story of a group of unhappy surfers. When he met them, the were complaining about a barrier someone had strung out in the water that kept them from surfing the larger waves farther out, but a man with binoculars soon showed them why the barrier was there. Through the binoculars, the group could see dorsal fins beyond the barrier. Sharks were feeding on the other side. " 'Don’t be too critical of the barrier,' he said. 'It’s the only thing that’s keeping you from being devoured.' "

The spiritual message of this event is fairly obvious, and I'll repeat it here. God's commandments exist for our protection. If we obey them, we will be safe from the spiritual dangers that exist in this world. However, unlike other analogies that share this message, this surfing barrier isn't just a sign that we could choose to ignore. It's an actual barrier. That fact, I think, warrants a slightly different version of the lesson we can learn from it.

We can break God's commandments very easily if we want to. In fact, it's sometimes difficult not to. However, this barrier would have been much more difficult to overcome than the warning sign that usually represents the commandments, which leads me to think that this barrier should actually represent something else.

Perhaps the barrier could represent a withholding of requested blessings that wouldn't actually be blessings to us. We might pray to be accepted into a particular college, for example, but it may be important for us to attend a different college instead, for reasons known only to the Lord. By placing a barrier in the path that we'd prefer to follow, God can redirect us to where we really need to go.

I'm grateful that God knows and wants what's best for us, even when we don't, and that He loves us enough to protect us with barriers that keep us from the things that would hurt us. True, He usually respects our agency and intelligence enough to let us make our own decisions, but I'm glad that He steps in to literally block us from harm when He needs to. I know that all that He does, He does for our benefit, even and especially when what He does for us seems to be holding us back.