Switchbacks

When we follow the Covenant path, it will lead us to a higher plane of existence. Anyone who has hiked a trail to a steep, high place will be familiar with switchbacks. Rather than go straight up the mountain, which would be too difficult and steep for us, switchbacks zigzag back and forth at a more manageable pace. Sometimes when climbing them, we can see the next leg of the switchback above us and we may wonder why we have to walk several hundred yards out and several hundred yards back just to get to almost the exact same place, only a few dozen feet higher. Sometimes when we do our best to follow the Covenant path, we feel the same way. We go back and forth and end up right back where we started, only a little higher. The Lord is merciful. He sent us to this life to be challenged but He will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able. He would not tell us, Look, here's the path up the mountain, it's an eighty five degree angle so pretty much all of you are going to stumble and fall back down to the bottom immediately but it is the quickest way to the top. No. He gave us switchbacks and although it may be frustrating to have to go back and forth, day in and day out always reading our scriptures and praying and every week attending sacrament and having family home evening and always seeming to only make a tiny amount of progress, but every switchback takes us a little higher and every once in a while we'll look back down and be a little dizzy at how high up we've gotten. That same stupid tree we zigzagged past twelve times now looks like a tiny dot. That peak we thought we'd never reach is now below us. It may be disheartening facing the same challenges day after day and week after week, but if we keep going back and forth on our switchbacks, we will get through it in the end and rise above it and leave it behind on our journey back to our Heavenly Father.