Pioneers

This is from a talk I gave a few years ago:

I’ve been asked to talk today on Pioneers and especially how we can benefit from the legacy of sacrifice and faith of those who have gone before us.

Because that’s what a Pioneer is. A forerunner. One who goes before and prepares the way. One who steps into the dark, with nothing but their faith to light the way.

We often talk about the heroism and bravery of the pioneers. We go on treks to taste a little of what it’s like to walk for miles pulling a handcart. We marvel at the way they pressed on enduring in faith even as they buried loved ones along the way. We shiver at tales of crossing icy rivers barefoot and yet feel the heat of the covenants that burned within them.

The pioneers of the past came before us. They prepared the way of the Lord. They made His paths straight. They revealed the Lord’s glory in thousands of ways great and small every day of their lives.

We too have been chosen as the Lord’s pioneers, as have all men and women from the beginning to the end of all of creation. Each of us has been called to go forth with faith, to prepare the Lord’s way and make straight His paths.

To be a pioneer is nothing more or less than to take part in the Great Plan of Salvation. Each of us made the decision to boldly go where none had gone before. We passed through the veil of forgetfulness and we accepted the gift and responsibility of agency. We knew that God would test us, to prove to Him and to ourselves that we would do all things which He would command of us. And we knew also that God would not tempt us above or below that which we are able to bear.

This life is tailor made for each of us. The challenges and struggles and triumphs and failures are unique to each one of us. No one else has lived precisely the life we live. No one else has faced the particular challenges we face. Except one.

Jesus Christ is the great Pioneer. He was the first and the only one to walk the path of Complete obedience, to trust his Father utterly, to forgive freely, to love unconditionally, and to sacrifice infinitely. How sore this path was, we know not, how exquisite, we know not, how hard to bear we know not.

This life was never meant to be easy. The life of a pioneer never is. And obedience and faithfulness to the Lord is no guarantee that hard times will pass us by. Just look at the Savior.

If our Heavenly Father blessed only the good with happiness and reserved the evils and the hurts of the world only for those who were wicked, for one thing, the Savior ought to have lived a life of bliss and contentment. But more importantly, if this were how God operated, He would condemn all of His children to lives of relentless and never ending misery. That sounds kind of like the other guy’s plan.

We call it the Plan of Happiness not because by following the Lord’s commandments we avoid or minimize our suffering or because by being obedient we will somehow get a free pass from life’s cruel disappointments.

We call it the Plan of Happiness because while the Lord did not see fit to remove our burdens, He was humble enough to take upon Himself our yoke, to meekly bear our burdens with us and to stand with us at all times and in all places, even unto death.

We call it the Plan of Happiness because no matter how hard the path and how dark the road and how trying the trail, the Savior is right there beside us, to lift up our hands that hang down and to strengthen our feeble knees.

We call it the Plan of Happiness because while thorns and thistles choke the path before us, and stones trip us up and the heat of the sun and the fury of the storm sap our will and drain our courage, and though the very jaws of hell gape open the mouth after us, yet all these things will give us experience and be for our good.

C.S. Lewis said, “Mortals say of some temporal suffering, ‘no future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory...The Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in heaven.’”

This life, filled with pain and terror and doubt and despair though it so often is, is such a vanishingly small part of the eternal glory we have been promised. And while it is hard to remember when times are tough and the pain grips us and the fear threatens to smother us, our Savior loves us. He knows we’re having a hard time because he’s right there with us, having the same hard time, only on a scale both deeper and broader than we can possibly imagine.

But beyond the infinite power of the Savior’s atonement in which all hurts and sorrows and pains and fears are swallowed up in joy everlasting, we also have each other. The trials we face and the refiner’s fires we pass through and the trails we blaze will work together not only for our good, but for the good of others as well.

Because while it is true that none have faced precisely the trials and temptations which we have been chosen to face, the legacy of faith and sacrifice and courage and determination of pioneers both past and present is freely available to each and every one of us, just as the legacy of faith we ourselves forge will be available to others in their uttermost need.

It is important for our eternal salvation that we walk this path of discovery ourselves. No one can be purified or refined on our behalf. No one can learn the lessons we need to learn or face the challenges that we must face. We cannot be saved in ignorance. Our whole purpose of this life is to come to know God and Jesus Christ. To suffer as They have suffered. To partake of the cup of which They partook and to be baptized with the baptism with which they were baptized.

Francis Webster, a member of the Martin handcart company, said, “Everyone of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.”

We become acquainted with God when we bury a loved one. We become acquainted with God when we face a terminal illness. We become acquainted with God when our testimony falters and doubt creeps in. We become acquainted with God when our souls are harrowed up by the memory of our sins. When we lock our keys in the car, when our bank account gets overdrawn, when we are mocked and ridiculed, when we are ignored.

When we suffer we get to know God better, for “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

This knowledge is hard won and precious bought, but it is not ours to keep. These trials that we face, these burdens that we bear, the faith that we foster and the knowledge that we gain connect us with one another through a shared sense of empathy and compassion.

You may wonder why God chose you, out of all of his children, to lose your job, or to get into a car accident, or to struggle with asthma. First of all, He chose you because He knew that you would overcome this obstacle. God has infinite power and any weakness or tragedy or disbelief can and will be consecrated for your good and His glory. But more importantly, God is mindful of all of his other children who have and will also lose their jobs and get into car accidents and struggle with asthma and He knows that you will not only have the strength and the courage and the faith to overcome the challenges in your life, but that you will have the compassion and the sensitivity and the experience to help those who come after and experience similar trials.

Just as we look to and draw hope and inspiration and courage from the legacy of the pioneers who have gone before us, so too will those who come after us look to our lives and be buoyed up by the strength and faith and humility that we have displayed in overcoming the obstacles that we face.

We are pioneers. We go before and we prepare the way. The scriptures tell us that one who acts as a forerunner and prepares the way is given the spirit and title of Elias. This same spirit has been promised to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children.

The pioneers who have gone before us are our spiritual mothers and fathers. They have shown us the way. The pioneers who will come after us are our spiritual children. They will follow in our footsteps. This pioneering spirit will knit together the hearts of all of God’s children in unity and love one towards another.

May we all press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all Men, forging a new link in the chain of faith and sacrifice of which we are all a part.

I know that God is with us. He is on our right and on our left. He sends his angels to bear us up. He invites us to come and learn of Him, to take up his yoke which is easy, and his burden which is light. There is no trial that we face that God Himself did not already overcome. I promise that all will be made right in the end, all tears shall be wiped away and we shall turn in our crown of thorns for a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.