The Easiness of the Way

Sometimes it seems like there are so many things that need to be done to return back to live forever with our Heavenly Father forever. There is always a bunch of stuff that I can look at and evaluate that I know I should be doing better at. 

Sometimes it just seems hard.

The Lord has given us several "lessons" about what it takes to obtain eternal life. One of the most poignant ones to me is Moses with the brazen serpent on his staff. The Israelites were getting bitten by poisonous serpents, and they would die, but the Lord told Moses to make a brass serpent on the end of a staff and hold it up, and people that would look were healed. Some people, though, would not look. They were not healed.

I've often thought about this story and thought "What the heck? Why didn't they look? Wasn't it at least worth LOOKING to try it out? I mean, it just didn't make sense. For sure, if I got bit by a poisonous snake, and there was even a slight chance that I could just look at a stick and be healed, I would totally do it! I mean, it takes so little effort to look at a stick, why wouldn't you try it?

Alma is teaching his son Helaman some things that he wants him to know. He teaches him of the importance of keeping and preserving a record (which would one day be abridged and translated by God's servants, resulting in the Book of Mormon that we have today), as well as the importance of doing everything with a prayer. He goes on to tell him this:

"O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever." (Alma 37:46)

I think that the things we're asked to do, are mostly easy. Sure, there's a lot of them, and sure, we have a lot of other things competing for attention in our lives, but at the end of the day, doing what the Lord wants us to do is easy. We just have to be willing to do it. I mean, is it hard to pray? It might be at first, but once you get used to it, praying is not hard. Is it hard to read scriptures? Obviously everyone is at their own level, but even at the most basic level, reading a few paragraphs is not difficult.  Is it hard to go to church? It's not, especially here in Utah, where you have to decide if you want to drive or walk, even though the Church is only a few blocks away.

While I think the things we've been asked to do are each easy, I think what's hard is doing EVERYTHING, and doing everything at the level that we feel we should. One example might be scripture study. I mean, there is a very big difference between skimming a few verses compared to sitting down for 30 minutes and really studying a topic. There's a big difference between just showing up for church compared with arriving prepared, having studied that week's lessons and spiritually really being prepared to be there.

We all have things we can be doing better. President Eyring at the last conference talked about how he redoubled his efforts and studied the Book of Mormon more in depth after President Monson admonished us to do so in the previous conference. I'm always hearing lessons and talks that lead to thoughts such as "I need to do that better" or "I should be more consistent with that thing".

The best news of all is that I am a work in progress. I am where I am, and I can't change my starting point. If I thought that I needed to go from where I am now to being perfect, I might as well give up. I might as well not look at the brass serpent. But because of the nature of eternal progression, I think the truth is that all I need to do is go for continuous improvement. If I am always doing better, always changing things, even ever-so-slightly, I am headed towards what I hope is my eventual destination. And the truth is, small changes are easy.

I think this is what Alma is telling Helaman here. He says don't get complacent. Don't fall back into old habits. Don't stop trying to improve. If we do that, as Alma says, "The way is prepared, and if we will [continuously work towards improving ourselves little by little] we may live forever".