LEAVING THE PATH OF HAPPINESS

I had barely had time to start my first reading of Alma chapter 4 in The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, when a comment Kathleen had made the prior evening when we were enjoying some television viewing came into my mind. ‘I don’t understand since living the way the church teaches us to live results in happiness why so many people, even when they are aware of this marvelous Plan of Happiness, choose another path.’

Alma begins this chapter with a short report on the tremendous harvest which had been reaped of converts during the first seven years of the reign of the judges. This positive report is quickly followed by a much sadder report of many members of the church leaving the joyful path and walking elsewhere.

Alma makes a long list of the reasons people stumble away from the pleasant path and onto one which can never lead to a fulness of joy:

They became lifted up in the pride of their own eyes and began to wear costly apparel.

They set their eyes upon riches and the vain things of the world.

They began to be scornful one towards another.

They began to persecute those that do not believe according to their own will and pleasure.

They began to have great contention.

There were envying’s.

There was strife.

There was malice.

There was inequality.

They turned their backs on the needy.

They went from one piece of iniquity to another.

In my own experience as I have witnessed those who have chosen to leave the pathway of the Plan of Happiness, I observed they were not doing so necessarily because of those reasons which Alma identified. Ten years ago when I first started writing these Thoughts for a Sabbath day I included the following story which I feel accurately explains why so many choose paths which cause them to leave the Happiness Path.

The story is told of an ancient fox trapper who mastered his craft in the North Country in the early days of the history of the United States of America, long before its vast space began to be filled by the westward migration stimulated by the quest for gold. After toiling for many lonely years in the wilderness, the day finally came when the creature comforts of far off cities pulled at him until he finally succumbed and announced to his few courageous peers that this year would mark his last season of gleaning pelts.

Residing in one of the tent shacks, which clustered together to make up what was generously referred to as the town, was an adventurous young man who had come west to find his fortune. The lad petitioned the ancient trapper that he might become his mentor in the skills of trapping. After a lengthy conversation the old man was persuaded to allow the young neophyte to be his apprentice for this one last season.

As the two journeyed together into the hills and then into the mountains the old master was particularly careful in his duties as he bequeathed his knowledge to his student. He found great excitement in the prospect of leaving his time-tried knowledge as a legacy which would be passed from his novice to a yet unborn future generation. After a season of meticulous care in setting and harvesting his traps, the once trapper now turned tutor returned from the mountains with his student, both being laden with the rewards of a bounteous yield of pelts. The old man could now look forward to his well-earned years of ease with the added joy of knowing that all he had learned over the years would not be lost because of his parting.

Some years later the ancient trapper, yielding to the beckoning call of the wild, and a curiosity to know of his apprentice’s success, returned to the mountains of his own well spent youth. After an extended search he finally found his student who had all the appearances of impoverishment and an ill spent life. He was living in a run down shack with a meager supply of substance surrounding him.

Questions stumbled upon one another as the old man in his haste desired to know the cause of what seemed to be a life of failure on the trap lines.

“Had the fox run out?”

“Had the traps lost their spring?”

“Had the Indians driven the trappers from the mountains?”

To each question came a haltingly humble almost inaudible reply, “no.”

“What then had happened,” queried the master trapper?

Almost too abruptly the answer left the lips of the destitute young man, “I FOUND A BETTER WAY.”

My own experience has been, that even a casual perusal of why the good people I have known have chosen to walk a path other than the one marked by the Plan of Happiness contained in the Lord’s Gospel, is simply because they have become convinced that for them there is a ‘better way’. Not because they have chosen to sink into the depths of iniquity, but because they feel much more comfortable on their own ‘better way’ path.

Alma becomes so convinced about the need to try to help others faithfully walk on the path of the Plan of Happiness that he yields up the position of Chief Judge so that he might be able to dedicate himself to convincing the members of the church to faithfully remain on their covenant path.

I have been blessed to live a life full of opportunity to meagerly attempt to do as Alma, of bearing down in pure testimony, in the spirit of revelation and prophecy. Because of these ample opportunities I have gained a witness that many walk alternate paths, not because of having chosen evil, but because of one or all of the following reasons.

They don’t see clearly the difference between the worldly propaganda of what the ‘good life’ is and the joy one receives by striving to walk the pathway of love and mercy.

They have arrived at a level of personal contentment and feel no need to pay the price for anything greater.

They have not been able to separate the imperfections and judgmental comments of those attempting to walk on the path from the perfection of the Plan.

Numerous attempts to walk the path of happiness accompanied by an equal number of imagined failures has led to a lack of interest in further attempts.

No matter how many ‘better ways’ we find or devise they will never yield the results of the pathway of the Plan of Happiness.

Only when we fully embrace and commit to walking the path of the Plan of Happiness can we reap the reward of the promised consequences.

None of us know the ‘due time’ of another and none of us should ever lose faith in our Heavenly Father’s diligent and dedicated devotion to complete His work and glory by bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children.

I pray that we might all be filled with love, patience and inspiration to accept each other wherever we might be walking, be ready to be inspired when another desires to lean upon us for strength to walk the gospel pathway and be wise enough to redirect our own stumblings which at times divert us from the Plan of Happiness.


THOUGHTS FOR A SABBATH DAY – WILLIAM L. RILEY

EDITED BY – KATHLEEN W. RILEY

FAITH - HOPE - CHARITY = PEACE - JOY - LOVE