Railings and the Rod

The following is a talk I gave in church this past week, I love the gospel and learning more about it and relating to others how the gospel makes sense to me. Mostly this is for my Mother and whoever else feels like reading it. I included my introduction because it leads into my talk. I know it doesn't really apply to you but oh well. 

As was stated my name is Alison Tracy and my husband James is speaking following me. We have been married for 3 months. We met in our singles ward,  lived next door to each other, were in the same FHE group, and his roommate had a slight crush on me and so naturally we spent some time around each other. One of the things that was appealing to me about James was his love for playing with his nieces and nephew because I had a similar love for my nieces and nephew and now we have the same nieces and nephews. It worked out great except that they love playing with Uncle James more than Aunt Alison, which is sometimes disheartening when a cute kids starts to run up to you to give you a hug and then does that awkward pass by when they see the cool uncle. In June his sister had twin boys and they are now getting to the point where they climb up to things and try to stand and walk. The only problem is they can’t stand by themselves yet and so their attempts to walk is just lunging forward and face planting. While baby Reid will hold onto your hands and move his feet in an attempt to walk, baby Redick refuses to hold on to ANYTHING and so he ends up falling and crying. The need to hold onto things in order to move effectively does not disappear just because we learn to walk. Notice there are still railings on stairs, guardrails on ledges, and rails to hold onto on buses and transport trains because they are needed. Most often used by elderly (or clumsy people like myself) I am sure they are needed and used by everyone at some point whether they are sick, have injured themself or they are simply lightheaded because they have climbed for so long and are almost to the top of the RB stairs. Like these physical railings and guardrails, there are spiritual guardrails that we are advised to hold onto, often taught… the Iron Rod. However, in pondering how we hold onto the iron rod, I questioned how a rod just appears for us to hold onto. All railings have to be built, Heavenly Father could hand us a railing to hold onto, like a person might hand a hungry man a fish but if we follow the proverb it is far more valuable to teach a man to fish and since Heavenly Father is wise and all knowing I have come to the belief that he has provided “materials” and an instructor, that being Jesus Christ,  and has us build our own railing because by human nature we respect and care for our own work and personal items more than things simply handed to us.

The first thing you need to build a railing are the core materials, which I will compare the ordinances and covenants we make at Baptism, receiving the Priesthood for men, the Endowment and of course the Sealing. Without them we CANNOT make it back to live with Heavenly Father, we recite in the 3^rd article of faith that all men may be saved by obedience to the laws AND ORDINANCES OF THE GOSPEL. Living an obedient life isn’t enough, so no matter how many tools and helpers we have to make our railing without the wood or metal no railing can be put up. Let’s look at everything else that helps us build our Rod to hold on to, the things we do daily and weekly that may not seem as significant but without them all we have is wood balancing on itself that would fall over with the slightest wind or trial, we need nails and tools in order for the railing to stay up.

Let the nails in our project be scripture study, prayer, family home evening and service. The commandments we are so often reminded of and what many refer to as the Sunday school answers. They are necessary to add to our life to keep our rail standing and we must continue to keep them in our life. If life is good and you can safely move along without the use of the rail it may not seem bad if a nail or two falls out of place, prayer becomes a rare occurrence and scripture study is for when you don’t have some other book to read. We may not see it as upmost importance to re-secure the spot of the nail because the rail is still standing without it and you’re not really using the railing anyways; but if there is an unexpected jolt to our railing or we slip on a rock and need the rail to make grab on to so we don’t fall, the loss of that nail may be found to be of great significance. My stake president growing up would often remind us as youth that he never had a person come to meet with the stake disciplinary council that was studying their scriptures and praying daily when they committed their sin. Further in Elder Holland’s well-known talk about the Book of Mormon, ‘Safety for the Soul’ he reminds us if “such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, … a rock of offence,” a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. So discontinuing our scripture study (especially that of the Book of Mormon) and the prayer in which we communicate with God not only loosens the nails but if the nails eventually fall out it puts us a great risk of stepping on them and injuring ourselves.

In the same talk Elder Holland reminds us of Lehi’s dream and that the “already difficult journey gets more difficult when a mist of darkness arises” and “It is imperative to note that this mist of darkness descends on all the travelers—the faithful and the determined ones… as well as the weaker and ungrounded ones.” And the difference between the two was “that the protected “did press their way forward, continually [and, Elder Holland adds, tenaciously] holding fast” to a rod of iron that runs unfailingly along the course of the true path.” These ‘mists’ are not always temptations of the devil but also trials the Lord has decided not to remove because we are capable to face. In Elder Neil L Andersen’s talk from last conference, ‘Trial of Your Faith’ he reiterates that “By definition, trials will be trying. There may be anguish, confusion, sleepless nights, and pillows wet with tears. But our trials need not be spiritually fatal. They need not take us from our covenants or from the household of God.”  If I might add to the words of these incredible men, for the sake of my amateurish analogy, with these trials and temptations the wood (I know I changed Iron into a vulnerable wood, I’m inexperienced with good spiritual analogies), begins to weather in the mists and some of the railing may have been damaged in the fiery storms, but the faithful and protected continued to make sure the ‘Rod’ was still stable and comfortable to hold onto, by providing the maintenance necessary to hold on to it.

I would like to associate our Maintenance of our railing to the attendance of ALL Church Meetings and the partaking of the sacrament. The sacrament is vital for us to be able to continue to hold on to our railing. If our wood is weathered and splintered we will not be able to run our hand along the railing as support for very long because it will hurt our hand. The sacrament provides sandpaper to smooth out the wood and rid us of our splinters. Elder Oaks has stated “our observance of the Sabbath, including our partaking of the sacrament, restores us spiritually and makes us better people for the rest of the week.” We have also been told that Sacrament Meeting is “the most sacred, the most holy, of all the meetings of the Church.” However, that does not mean we should skip out on the rest of our meetings. Sunday School, Priesthood, Relief Society, Stake Conference meetings (all of them) ***I was asked to include this in my talk in hopes it would help in encouraging people to attend Stake Conference this weekend** and General Conference provide us with the varnish and padding for our railing so we have the protection, support and comfort for our railing so we will want to continue holding on when more storms come our way.

With eternal ordinances, scripture study, prayer, obedience to the commandments, church attendance and with the loving example of our Savior, Jesus Christ our pile of supplies becomes a beautiful comfortable railing we can walk down to greet our Heavenly Father at the gates of the Celestial Kingdom. Elder Dallin H. Oaks teaches “The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done, It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.”

I LOVE Heavenly Father's plan for us, and the actions and examples he puts in my life. Although sometimes I think my railing couldn't possibly be leading to the top of the stairs because of all of the twists and movements downwards I sometimes feel like it makes, there are moments when on my railing I can see the top and those are the moments that keep me building.