Heeding the Lantern-bearers

Beautiful but deadly jellies

by H. Linn Murphy

I missed my deadline for this site [but the blog admin waved her magic wand and fixed it] because I was up at Conference. That journey brought to the stage of my mind the fact that God, in all His majesty, is one of beauty and order and matchless love.

For us He has laid out a perfect road map to happiness, complete with ways to get back on the path when we make side trips and fall into swamps of sin and ignorance. He sets lantern-bearers to point the way and light our steps through the talus-filled passes and rocky shoals and sink holes.

Not only has He called men of great spiritual stature to teach and lead and  serve His sheep, but He has made a vast world in which we can grow and learn and try ourselves.

chambered nautilus

Every time I see a chambered nautilus with its perfect Golden Mean, or the symmetry of a jellyfish or the vastness of a stand of aspen--single entity as it is--I am reminded of that order. The lines of a deer bounding in flight, helictites sparkling in the depths of a cavern, fauna and flora in all their infinite variety webbing the world, filling every clime even to the most inhospitable, remind me that Our Father in Heaven loves us. I feel that love when I hold a newborn baby in its infinite, unmanufacturable perfection, or experience a tender mercy however small. I know He watches over me and sets guardians around me. I feel them watching at His bidding.

Gorgeous gypsum helictites

How can I, then, not pay heed to those who illuminate the way Home? How can I choose the unlit paths which lead only to pain and desperation and hopelessness? And how can I not take up a lantern and light the steps of those who come behind me?

I am utterly grateful for those men and women who stand as sentries before the gates, as examples of how to follow that road map, as reminders that we, though human, may strive for perfection and return to the God who loves us with limitless adoration.