The danger of a good thing

It is often too easy to accept a good thing, and dangerous too. Good things can be bad for you. Let me explain.

Years ago, I had to leave college and take a full-time job. I didn’t have the time or funds to be a student. I paid off my student loan debt, and stayed in that same job that I was in. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was comfortable. I had an easy job that didn’t pay badly. It wasn’t great, but not bad. I owned a house, a dog and was married to my beautiful wife. I spent my days at the office, would come home to my wife and dinner. Some days I would do yard work, others we’d go out. It was good.

As is always does, the rains came. There was a sudden change in management. My boss was replaced by one of my least favorite co-workers. He didn’t give me a chance. He immediately restructured the business, folding my responsibilities into three other positions to reduce costs. After seven years I was unemployed and uneducated. I had trouble finding a job that fit my skill and payment requirements. I knew what had happened: I had become complacent. Now I had to pay the price.

I’d had chances to go back to school. I’d had chances to find another job more suited to me in a field I could advance in. I did not. I was lured into complacency and lulled to sleep by comfort. I was not working where I wanted to be.

In The Book of Mormon, the Jaredites had a similar problem. They followed the word of the Lord to a good place, the valley of Moriancumer. It must have been beautiful. I think about the group of refugees that had suffered fear, doubt, and loss, gathering as a small group of friends and family in a good place and building a home. After four years they built a new normal, they had a good life and became comfortable. Their spiritual leader, the brother of Jared, finally went to the Lord in prayer. He was chastened for hours.

He had followed the word of the Lord. He’d faithfully lead his friends and family away from everything they had ever known into nothingness based solely on prophecy. They had left everything they had to follow the Lord, is that not good?

It was not enough. It was only good, not great. It was too easy to accept the good thing the Lord had given them and not look beyond it to receive more. The Lord had more in store for them. In Ether 2:7-8 we read:

Despite his earlier failings, the brother of Jared had such faith
that he saw the finger of the Lord

7 ”And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.

8 And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared, that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God”

That is a far greater destiny than a small village in the old world. The Jaredites were meant to expand, to travel to a land of promise where they would expand to cover the whole face of the land. They would build cities that the Nephites would marvel at hundreds of years later.

They followed the word of the Lord and traded “good’ for “better.”

We too are meant for more. I don’t care who you are, you could be a millionaire, President, or a genius – you haven’t actually arrived yet. We are infinite children of an immortal Father. We are not meant for small things, or even mortal things. We are not meant to toil in obscurity and mediocrity. Our Father built us for more than that. He calls us to higher things, and He will qualify those he calls. His is a way of glory.

We won’t reach these heights all at once. He will have steps for us to take. Sometimes we will need to stand and wait on the Lord. He may need us to put down roots and build a life somewhere, but we should never be too comfortable. The whole of eternity is lies before us. We have time. We may need to start small or fall to grow. We may have to fight our way up, but we should never stop moving. The moment we stop looking forward – we have lost. We can always pick up our burden and repent to keep following him, but that calling may be gone. We can miss steps and still reach our ultimate goal, but a chance may only come once, passing irretrievably into our history as something that could have been.

John Greenleaf - Poet and author

“For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these ‘it might have been’” – John Greenleaf

Our God is a loving God, and a God of second chances. The Lord stands with his hand out-stretched ready to lift us to greater heights, But first we have to reach out to him.

My goal now is to never become complacent again. I never want to be left in the dust and ruins of my own inaction again. I wish to keep moving forward, always improving and growing until I reach that perfect day. And then, I will look on to what lies ahead.