A LITTLE MOSES IN EACH OF US

Prince of Egypt – Shepherd in the camp of Jethro – Prophet of Israel. The Torah neatly separates these passages of Moses’ life into three segments of four decades each. Whether his life’s chronology was so cleanly designed or whether literary license was used, we must not be distracted by literary examination from the lessons of his life nor the teachings. We learn that the luxuries and powers which are held by one in mortality are fleeting and can be removed at any moment by seemingly insignificant emotional decisions. We learn that during seemingly insignificant periods of our lives foundations may be being laid which will prepare us for the true purposes of our mortal passages. We learn that once we are enlightened with the real purpose of our existence we become dependent upon forces outside of ourselves to bring fruition to our efforts. We learn that the life of one person can have lasting and significant effect upon the lives of billions.
Most of us will never have the history of our lives chronicled in such a way that most of the world’s inhabitants will be affected in one way or another by its existence. Our trials and adversities may or may not be as traumatic. We may not have 120 years to build a legacy. Historians may not be able to neatly divide our passages into such tightly bound segments. Our names may not be whispered and spoken by countless generations, but we must not underestimate the effect our existence will have on generations yet unborn.
Jimmy Stewart in the movie ‘Its a Wonderful Life' reminds us of the difference each person’s seemingly insignificant existence makes in the world. What he thought was a wasted life in a small town was revealed to be a Moses-like figure for many in that community.
I suspect if each of us had an angel come to us and reveal the continuing results of our mortal sojourn we would all be humbled at the mark we are leaving on humanity.
I only have to look back a couple of generations to be struck with the realization of how different my life would have been if grandparents hadn’t made the decision to leave generations of traditions and teachings and consequently immigrate to the United States in order to enjoy the freedom to worship according to the tenets of their newly acquired faith. What would have been the affect upon my life if my parents had chosen to remain in the religious comforts of Utah and Idaho instead of moving to Southern California? What changes would have been put in place if my mission call as a young man would have taken me to West Virginia instead of Northern Mexico? How different would my life have been if Kathleen had said ‘no’ when I asked her to marry me as we sat in the car in the shadow of the Los Angeles Temple? What would life have been like if I had made a career in the construction business rather than as an employee of our church’s education system?
It takes little imagination for each of us to realize that our lives would be dramatically changed if our ancestors or ourselves had altered our decisions even in small ways during mortality. In the case of my immediate grandparents the lives of 24 children and their posterity have been tremendously changed because of the decisions they made during their lives. If I were to go back one more generation, polygamist marriages multiply the numbers exponentially. It doesn’t take long going back and then connecting the generations coming forward to realize it would be very difficult to throw a handful of rice in the air in any crowd and not hit a cousin of some sort. The surnames of cousins cover the alphabet and would make up a pretty large collection of white pages in a telephone directory. Besides the Rileys and the Laws I am hereditarily connected to Tolmans, Sessions, Briggs, Tolhursts, Tonks, Cushings, Holbrooks and countless others without even looking into the relatives by marriage. I wonder what some Moses in my line back in the year 1650 would think about the impact his decisions had made on the thousands or tens of thousands who have been affected because he decided to take a road to the left rather than the right during his earthly wanderings.
The next time we are about to take lightly a decision we are about to make it might be well to hesitate just a moment and consider the Moses-affect which might result from whether we choose to go to the left, to the right or just continue circling our well-worn path.