BETWEEN DESERTS AND PARADISE

It was during the summer of 1978 when Kathleen and I sat together in a beautiful air-conditioned bus looking out the window at a very interesting phenomenon.

What we were looking at was a well-defined line where the sands of the Sanai merge with the fertile productive loam distributed along the Nile Valley during millennia of flooding.

As we witnessed the stark contrast between the barren desert and the fruitful valley, I couldn't help but think of Moses as he stood somewhere along this line. I wondered what he thought as he turned his back on the bounties of Egypt’s storehouses and faced the bleakness ahead and led the children of Israel into that blistering desert.

This moment must have been a climatic symbol of the great change which had come upon him when he had turned his back on being a prince of Egypt and accepted the Lord’s call to become His prophet.

I doubt that in his wildest dreams he would have ever envisioned that the innumerable earthly treasures of his princely life would be have to be sacrificed and the Lord would put him on scorching path which would lead him and countless numbers of Heavenly Father’s children to Eternal Treasures.

We, much like Moses, often stand on a line which divides:

Bleakness from Brightness

Gloom from Glitter

Futility from Fertility

Calamity from Calmness

Recklessness from Restfulness

Sadness from Serenity

Sadly, when standing on a line with our limited understanding we are often confused between:

Bleakness and Brightness

Gloominess and Glitter

Futility and Fertility

Calamity and Calmness

Recklessness and Restfulness

Sadness and Serenity

And, thereby, lose the blessings the Lord has in store for us.

The struggle which attends these dramatic choices we are called upon to make in our lives:

Brings a little trauma into the life of every single person as they contemplate sacrificing the spoils of mortality for the promise of receiving joy in their posterity

Brings a little trauma into the life of every graduate as they contemplate an entry level job for the promise of some future comforts

Brings a little trauma into the life of us all as we stand in every store or showroom and struggle between self-indulgence and being a charitable person

Brings a little trauma into the life of each of us as we try to decide how to divide our precious hours between hobbies and recreation, and our family and church stewardships

Brings a little trauma into the life of every one of us as we struggle between minding our own business and being our brother’s keeper

Many times since that day Kathleen and I sat together gazing out the window of our comfortable air-conditioned bus entering the desert just outside of Cairo, Egypt, I have figuratively found myself on that line between desert and paradise; torn between the comforts of the now and the unknown of what might be out in the desolate hot sands.

Not yet as Moses, but to a small degree, I have come to realize that decisions made with the understanding of the natural eye are usually very shortsighted. Only as I attempt to see with the visions available to the spiritual eye do I gain the strength to reject the treasures of the world and begin to be led in my wanderings toward the promised land of Life Eternal.

THOUGHTS FOR A SABBATH DAY – WILLIAM L. RILEY

EDITED BY – KATHLEEN W. RILEY