"Many Hours"

Tonight, in our family scripture reading, my family read 1 Nephi chapter 8, in which Lehi describes his dream of the tree of life, and one part toward the beginning stood out to me.

At the start of the the dream, Lehi found himself in "a dark and dreary wilderness." Not a great start. Soon, an angel appeared and led Lehi through "a dark and dreary waste." So, even following an angel, Lehi's situation doesn't seem to be getting a whole lot better, and in fact, may even be getting worse. And evidently, this walking goes on for quite some time because Lehi said "And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies." Personally, I would like to think that, if I found myself in "a dark and dreary waste," it wouldn't take me "many hours" to start praying. But I'd bet it would.

This world is not the nicest place we could be living in. This planet has a lot of problems, both natural and man-made. Earth is (at least sometimes) a "dark and dreary" place. Whether it's a "wilderness" or a "waste" or a "field" ripe with potential may be a matter of perspective, but it clearly isn't its best self right now. Going through life is a struggle that brings even the strongest people to their knees.

Yet, even some of the wisest people are reluctant to go to their knees in response to facing the challenges of earth life. It took Lehi, a prophet, "many hours" traveling through "a dark and dreary waste" to realize that maybe he ought to pray about his situation.

I find it easy to relate to that. I often go for long stretches of time, longer than "many hours," between meaningful prayers, despite facing personal challenges that really test me. "A Dark and Dreary Waste" could be the title of my biography if I don't make some drastic changes. I acknowledge that my life isn't anywhere near as dark or as dreary as many other people's lives, but it's still dark and dreary enough to make it obvious to me that I should pray regularly. Yet, I don't. And I imagine that others don't either. We need God's help, but it takes us so long to admit that and ask for it.

To Lehi's credit, he did have an angel guiding him, which might have led him to believe that further aid was unnecessary. We fall into that trap, too. We have prophets and scriptures to guide us, and many of us have loving family members to aid and guide us as well. However, regardless of whatever mortal or even celestial support structures we may have, we still need to pray. Nothing can replace frequent, meaningful communion directly with God.

We need to pray. And it's best that we not wait "many hours" before doing so.