First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. Bt instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears, “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked, baffled. “Don’t you want to play with any of the toys?” “Yes,” the little boy bawled, “but if I did I’d only break them.”
Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist let out yelp of delight the doctor had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then the boy climbed to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. “What do you think you’re doing?” the doctor asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “There just has to be a pony in here somewhere.”
Brothers and Sisters, if there was ever a time in history that our Father in Heaven’s children need to look for pony’s, it’s now.
When I was growing up, my grandpa Carter ran a service station in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Back then, there was still farm land and pastures everywhere. Behind grandpa’s service station were acres of pastures. In those pastures, were those animals you would normally find there-cows and horses. As kids we loved it there. We had the freedom to run and play. The choices of games were unlimited. Whatever our imaginations could conjure up we could do. There were just two obstacles in the pasture that I can remember that stood in our way of being totally free.
The first one that stands out in my mind is the barbed-wire fence. To get from one pasture to the other we had to either climb over them or under them. I can remember grandpa telling us that if we wanted to play out back we had to stay in his pasture. He always reminded us that in a couple of pastures next to him were not cows and horses, but bulls, bulls with horn’s. He reminded us that the fences were placed there for a reason. To keep the cows and horses from straying into areas they shouldn’t go, and to keep the bulls out.
The second obstacle was that we had to watch very carefully where we walked. The cows, especially, left land mines everywhere.
Yes, we had the freedom of the our doors and to choose what activities we wanted to do but if we didn’t want to suffer the consequences of our mothers when we got home, we surely didn’t want to step on any cow made land mines.
The Lord has provided us with a very large area to work and play in. He has given us permission to do whatever we desire to do in it. We can develop the skills He’s given us, we can become anything we choose. However, He wants us to be safe, He wants us to return home to Him and he’s given us every means to do so. He has also, placed obstacles in our path. Do we see them as an optimist or a pessimist? “Storms, turmoil and adversity, temptations are going to sometimes sweep into our lives. Emotional storms that threaten to engulf and destroy us.” Do we see them as opportunities of growth and faith builders or do we see them as waves that will swallow us up in the sea of despair.
Some land mines and barbed wire fences are actually laid out and built into our mortal curriculum by a loving god to test and prove us as well as to provide experiences that will develop the divine nature within us. Sometimes they come because we fail to head the warnings that have been given to us. Satan and his helpers bombard us with temptations to destroy us. “Many of our difficulties, however, come from the random, accidental misfortunes that we all risk by living in the imperfect world, or as the result of cruel and unjust treatment by people who attempt to misuse or abuse us.” When these circumstances befall us, do we believe that our Father in heaven is there? Do we trust him? “One of the saddest questions ever asked of the Savior was, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?”
Michael Wilcox is one of my favorite speakers. I been to several of his Education week classes and he spoken at many of the Know Your Religion courses before they quit having them. He is and has been the Institute Director at the University of Utah for many years. Attending his classes so often, and sharing a love for C.S. Lewis, we became friends. I ran across a talk that he’s given that fits perfectly in the talk and I don’t think he would mind if I shared it with you. You can also find it on the LDS web site and I would highly recommend that you find it and read it in it’s entirety. The talk is entitles “Bread or Stones: Understanding the god We Pray To.” The talk is based on 4 letters he has written to his daughter after she has had the opportunity to teach English in Russia. She had just graduated from high school and had only one semester at BYU. He says and I quote:
A number of years ago when my daughter was about your age, she was just out of high
school, she went to one semester at BYU and then she got an opportunity to go to the Soviet Union (former Soviet Union) and teach English in Russia. Now this was before e-mail and cell phones, and communications between the United States and the Soviet Union were not going to be really good. She was eighteen; we were a little bit worried that there might be moments or times when she would need to talk with a parent, and not be able to because of communication difficulties. So I decided that I would write her a series of letters and try and figure out each situation she might find herself in that maybe she would want to talk to a mother or father over. So I wrote about a dozen letters and sealed them in envelopes, and on the outside of each envelope I put the topic of the letter: When You’re Discouraged; If You’re Tempted; When You Get Homesick. Now I tried to guess as many of those as I could, and I gave them to her at the airport. She opened a number of them in Russia; some of them were not needed, and she opened them when she got home—to see what I had said. But I have often thought about the scriptures in a very similar manner. The scriptures are our Father in Heaven’s letters; only He knows more than I did as a father what you and I would need. There are times in our lives when we need to open the letter and communicate with our Father in Heaven, and understand what He is like and His concern for us.
I would like to share this morning, with you, four letters from my Father in Heaven that
have been very important to me—that I hope will be indicative of the power that the scriptures can be for us as we face different trials and challenges of our lives.
The first letter is called The Fourth Watch. That letter comes from the sixth chapter of
Mark.
The Savior has fed the five thousand that day, and in the late afternoon, early evening, He
is sending his apostles down into the ship. He will dismiss the multitude. He wishes to pray that evening, and then He will meet the apostles a little later on the shore and they are to pick Him up.
In late afternoon, early evening, the apostles get on the ship; they push out in the Sea of
Galilee. The Savior dismisses the multitude, and prays. The Savior could pray a long time; so, He prays late into the night. We read in Mark what takes place with the apostles:
And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. And when even
was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw
them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch
of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea. (6:46-48)
In John’s account of this particular story we read that the apostles had rowed the equivalent of about seventy-five football fields against the wind.
There are times in our lives when we toil, rowing against the wind. We are trying to make
progress and sometimes it seems that there are forces that are against us. There may be some great blessing that we deeply desire. There may be some trial that we want deeply to be over. And it doesn’t seem like we are making any headway against the wind. We wonder if the Lord is listening.
Now we need to understand something about our Father in Heaven, and that is that He is
a fourth watch God. The Hebrew night was divided into four watches. The first watch—six o’clock at night tonine [p.m.], second watch—nine to midnight, third watch—midnight to three in the morning, fourth watch—three in the morning to sunrise.
Sometimes that creates a bit of a problem for us, certainly for me. I worship a fourth
watch God. One who tends to feel that it is good to let His children toil in rowing against the wind to face a little opposition. My problem is that I am a first watch person. Now there is something inside of me that understands that it is good for me to toil in rowing against the wind. But certainly by the second watch He would come. And when the second watch has passed and He still has not come. Sometimes I forget that as Mark says, He is watching. He watched them toiling and rowing. I began to make some assumptions that are often dangerous to make—maybe you make the same. We begin to assume that, number one, He is not there. That is why He’s not responding. And then we calm down and understand that He is there; He is always there. Then the second assumption is if He is there, He must not be listening. And then again, in calmer times—He always listens. Well then the third assumption is He must not care. No—He’s there, He listens, He cares. Maybe the most dangerous assumption, the fourth assumption is I must not be worthy. Now that fourth assumption we are probably correct on. But when has that ever stopped Him from responding; we are as worthy as we can be. We must assume that we have not yet reached the fourth watch; and He is a fourth watch God. The scriptures are full of fourth watch stories: Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove—“At
the very moment I was ready to sink into despair” (JSH 1:16). Do you ever feel that way? “Just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light” (JSH 1:16). It was when the widow of Zarephath was gathering two sticks to make a final meal for her and her son that Elijah came walking through the gate to save them from the famine (1 Kings 17). It was when the water was spent in the bottle and Hagar had placed Ishmael under a tree because she did not want to see his death, that the angel came to say, Hagar, what aileth thee? and showed her a source of water(Genesis 21:17).
We worship a fourth watch God. So when the trials aren’t over and the blessings don’t
come, don’t assume that He is not there, or He is not listening, or He doesn’t care, or you’re not worthy. Always assume you have not yet reached the fourth watch.
Will we ever learn that our Father in Heaven will never leave us alone, never ignore or neglect us. He does and always will care what happens in our lives. “There is no situation we can encounter from which Christ cannot deliver us, whether it is physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.”
In the dictionary, there are several synonyms for the word optimism-hope, happiness, and faith. Real hope, real faith is what looks past the limitations of our seemingly impossible situations. Real faith allows us to “confidently trust our Father in Heaven, even when we cannot imagine a solution or see any possible means of deliverance.”
Those of our brothers and sisters that do not have the gift of the gospel in their live, live in the lone and dreary world. For those of us who do, have the responsibility to be optimistic. We have no right to see things through a glass darkly. “…all things will work together for our good and give us the experiences that we need to become like Christ-if we allow them to.” But all things do not necessarily “work together for our good,” or provide growing experiences to those who respond negatively or impatiently.”
In Hymn 285 we read,
“Ye fearful Saints, fresh courage take:
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head”
Brothers and Sisters, “We oftentimes forget that these unpleasant land mines and barb-wire fences are not difficulties to bring us down, but are the very tutoring lessons of mortality. We must never forget that “We fought a war for the privilege of coming here to experiences” those very land mines that we promised our father in heaven we would conquer.
In the first part of my story about growing up and playing in the pasture, I failed to tell you the best part. Down in the bottom right hand corner of the pasture, probably about a block or more from the house was a well. I can close my eyes and still see that three foot pipe coming out of the ground. And out of the pipe was the sweetest, most refreshing water I have every tasted. May we be as the young optimistic 5 year old boy. When our lives seem as a pile of manure, when our days are filled with avoiding the land mines and barb-wire fences- keep looking for the pony’s and run to the sweet, refreshing water and never thirst again.
Speaker: Unknown
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