Save Your Fork

I was visiting teaching this month and this was part of the message:

"During the construction of the Nauvoo Temple, a group of sisters desired to organize to support the building effort. Eliza R. Snow drafted bylaws for this new group. When she showed them to the Prophet Joseph, he responded: “Tell the sisters their offering is accepted of the Lord, and he has something better for them. … I will organize the women under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood.” ⁶ A short time later, the Prophet told the newly organized Relief Society: “I now turn the key to you in the name of God, and this Society shall rejoice, and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time.” ⁷ The sisters were expected to rise to a new level of holiness and to prepare for the priesthood ordinances soon to be administered in the temple."  -Ensign, March 2011

It struck me for several reasons.
Here were women, doing what women do: noticing needs and deciding to do something about it-to help, to bless, to organize.  When they took their plans before the church and the Lord, they were told that while what they were doing was good and acceptable, there was something even BETTER in store, after which the Relief Society was organized with all the additional responsibilities and blessings that came from being connected to the Priesthood.

I began to wonder about life, particularly my life. 

What good things might I be engaged in without realizing the Lord has bigger and better plans for me?

I began to think about scriptural examples.


What about the Brother of Jared?  After the whole Tower of Babel thing, he and his family got their languages worked out so they could all communicate.  They went to the wilderness to the sea shore's edge.  They had been told by the Lord about the Promised Land they were to travel to next.  They'd been promised blessings.  It appears the Lord had let them know quite clearly.  

And then...they camped.  They pitched their tents and just...stayed.  For FOUR YEARS.  Not four years of boat-building or working or preparing.  Just living.  It took the Lord coming down and chastening the Brother of Jared for three hours (!) before it tells us that he (the Brother of Jared) "went to work" in preparation to sail for that Promised Land.  (And, well, wouldn't you?)

Why did the Brother of Jared and his people camp?  Did they doubt the promises that had been made?  Did they fear the journey ahead?  Did they think that their lives couldn't actually get better?  Was it just the work and starting over that would be required?  Perhaps it was the fear of the unknown, of stepping in a boat and just setting sail, knowing there was no return?  Whatever it was, they did not move on to that "something better" that really was waiting.

And so, after the chastening, they finally obeyed.  They exercised great faith.  The Brother of Jared even saw the Savior (! another exclamation mark here) during his preparations.  


When those preparations were completed (8 boats?  That must have taken some work), the obstacles overcome (No light? No air?  Solved!) and they set sail, it was nothing but an easy journey, right?  After all that faith and work and effort, they were rewarded for their diligence with a nice cruise ship to the Americans.  Right?  RIGHT????!!!!!

WRONG.  


It was a horrible journey.  It was about a year long (Think about everything that has happened--day in and day out--of the last year.  That is a LONG time!).  They were continually tossed by tumultuous waves.  They were sometimes above and sometimes under the water.     And the only thing to keep them going were the promises that:

1. They would have light continually (above or below water)
2. Nothing, no matter how bad, would mar or destroy them
3. When they prayed, they could be brought up from the depths of the ocean.  Not permanently, but enough to know that God heard their prayers.
4. There was a Promised Land waiting at the end.  



And so it is in my life.  I often expect that as soon as I make a right decision, exercise faith, take that step into the boat, that it will all work out.  Things will get better.  The blessings will come.  And what happens when instead of better, the journey only gets worse? 

Did we do it wrong?  Weren't we faithful enough?  Did God not keep His promise?  Was it all for nothing?  Was it even worth it?  



And the answer is, yes.  Yes, it is worth it.  When they arrived at the Promised Land (and they did), they gave thanks for the tender mercies bestowed upon them.  



If all good actions were immediately rewarded, it wouldn't actually be faith.  Faith and hope have a much longer reaching effect--knowing that even if it is not in this lifetime, the "better" things the Lord has prepared ARE worth it.


I asked my FHE group about it, about other examples, and they had some interesting insights:



*The early saints (the pioneers) were driven from place to place to place, with faith that God really was preparing something better.  They finally did make it to Salt Lake and it was something better-a place of freedom, a place where a temple could stand into the eternities, a place of peace...  And yet, it was not "The Land Bountiful" when they arrived after the arduous trek.  In fact, while teaching Utah history this year, I learned that some of the women, upon arriving, cried and said they would be willing to travel yet a thousand miles more to settle somewhere besides Utah, the terribly forsaken place that it was.  Not exactly the immediate reward they may have had in mind when Brigham Young declared, "This is the right place."  ("THIS is the right place?!  Are you sure you aren't just tired of traveling?  I mean, we can keep going if you need us to....")


 *The Jews were looking for a Savior, a "Deliverer" who, like Moses with parting seas and stunning miracles, would liberate them from their political rulers.  And yet, there was something even better.  It was good to look for one like Moses, but this "freedom" that came through Christ was not freedom from physical oppression (which lasted a lifetime) but from eternal death and suffering, from pain and sin and weakness.  For those not looking in the right way, they couldn't even see that the Lord had given them something better.

And so, I want to stop limiting myself to my own plan I have drawn up for my life (much like those early sisters' bylaws they drafted) and allow the Lord to make my life something grander, something more substantial, something greater than I am currently making it on my own.  He will help me, and I have to continue in faith that even though I can't see it, and often have a hard time believing it, the best really is yet to come.  

And so, I am going to: SAVE MY FORK.

"There once was a woman who was getting older and had been ill. She decided to speak with her pastor to prepare her funeral arrangements so that her family would not have to worry. As they were finishing up she said,

“Pastor, there is one more thing. When I die there is to be an open casket and I am to be buried with a fork in my hand.”

Confused, the pastor asked why.

“Well Pastor, I’ll tell you. In all my years of church dinners and potlucks, the best were when the ladies would clear off the tables, lean over and whisper ‘Save your fork.’ I would know then, the best was yet to come. So you see Pastor, I want to be buried with a fork in my hand, and people will ask why. I want you to tell them because the best is yet to come.”