How’s this for a plan to transport a group of people across the ocean? Build eight enclosed barges with no mechanism for steering and no way to see where you are most of the time. Load all the people and provisions into the barges, launch the boats, and hope for the best.
It’s not surprising to me that it took nearly a year for Jared and his family and friends to reach the promised land. What is surprising is that all eight barges survived the journey and arrived at the same location. The Lord had explained to the brother of Jared, “Ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come”(Ether 2:25). After they launched the barges…
…the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.
And it came to pass that they were many times buried in the depths of the sea, … [but] when they were encompassed about by many waters they did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters.
And it came to pass that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind.
Ether 6:5-8
Some subsequent generations remained righteous by remembering how the Lord had carried their ancestors “across the great deep.” (See Ether 7:27, Ether 10:2.)
This week’s lesson in the Come, Follow Me manual says, “The Lord will prepare me to cross my ‘great deep.'” What is the equivalent in our lives of the Jaredites’ journey across the sea? As Elder L. Todd Budge has pointed out, like the Jaredites, we do not always have control over our circumstances, we may sometimes feel unsafe, and we may feel that we are traveling on or even under turbulent seas. (See “Consistent and Resilient Trust,” General Conference, October 2019).
Joseph Smith wrote, “Deep water is what I am wont to swim in. It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it” (Doctrine and Covenants 127:2; see also Romans 5:3). So many of his circumstances were beyond his control, and so he learned to trust God.
In the hymn “How Firm a Foundation,” the Lord gives us this reassuring promise:
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
Hymns, 85
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
Today, I will trust God to carry me “across the great deep.” I will accept that many of my circumstances are beyond my control. I will focus on the things I can control and have faith that God will manage the rest.
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