Whenever I drive past the Provo, Utah temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I see an old, orange truck that reminds me of a message Jeffrey R. Holland shared once. Here's the link for the video of it if you're interested: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2013-09-0016-wrong-roads?lang=eng.
I've always liked the story and could somewhat relate to it, of course, but recently, it became more relevant.
Holland told of a time when he took his son to visit some spots in Southern Utah, but as they planned to return home before dark, they came upon a fork in the road. Choosing the wrong road meant that they might end up in a destination far from where they had planned (home), so not knowing which road was the road home, they prayed together and consulted. Both Jeffrey R. Holland and his son felt that they should take a certain road, so they drove down it for a couple of miles and came to a dead end. Knowing that it was not the correct road after all, they turned around and went down the other road.
His son asked why they had felt prompted to go down the dead-end road if it wasn't the right one, to which Jeffrey R. Holland suggested that perhaps, it was so that they might know with assurance which path was correct.
A little over a year ago, I began using a bullet journal to plan every week. I got into the habit, and I've accomplished more with it than I ever have by not planning. Sometimes, I even have backup and backup-backup plans because if we don't plan, we lose sight of our dreams.
And then, something happened that made me feel like I had reached a deadend. Actually, I had reached several dead ends. I was in a rat maze where every path I tried going down was a deadend, but my newest stumbling block was something that I was confident I could get over easily.
That's not what happened. I made four or five different plans, knowing that I could make it down one of those roads, and then, every single plan failed until I was left hopeless and wondering why I had been allowed to go down each of these paths in the first place.
Wednesday last week, I saw that little orange truck again, and as I thought about it, I realized that maybe, I had not been allowed to act on those plans so that I would fail but that I could succeed with confidence when I came to the correct road.
God expects us to "be believing and not give up, and not panic and not retreat and not jump ship when something doesn't seem to be going just right. We stay in. We keep working" (Jeffrey R. Holland).
And if we do stay in and keep working, everything will work out just fine in the end.
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