A Fork in the Road

Yesterday I was browsing deseretbook.com and came across an excerpt from a book titled Fathers of Faith. I will try to paraphrase what I remember from that excerpt. It was written by Matt Holland son of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.

Matt mentions an experience when he was about eight or nine years old. His family was on vacation in St. George, Utah where his mom and dad are from. They were visiting his grandparents and Elder Holland decided to take his son Matt on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. They used his grandpa’s old truck and a handwritten map. The dirt roads were bumpy and windy. They finally made it to the Grand Canyon and before long Elder Holland said they needed to get back before it got dark because they were unfamiliar with the way back.

After a while, driving on the dirt roads they came to a fork in the road. They didn’t recall any forks on the way out and there was no fork drawn on the map. They decided to pray to know which road they should take. After the prayer Elder Holland asked his son Matt what he thought they should do.

Matt said he felt impressed that they should take the left road. Elder Holland agreed that he had received the same impression.

So, they headed down the left fork in the road and after about 10 minutes came to a dead end. Elder Holland quickly turned the truck around and went back to the fork in the road, and took the right fork.

There wasn’t much conversation on the drive back. Matt was a little disconcerted that he felt impressed to take the wrong road. Finally he asked his father why they both received inspiration to take the wrong road.

Elder Holland replied that he had been thinking about that also and came to the conclusion that if they had received the impression to take the right road that Elder Holland would have driven on that road for 30 minutes and turned around because it was unfamiliar. But, since they had taken the wrong road first, he was certain he was on the right path and didn’t make the grave mistake of turning back only to find out that they were on the right path all along. If they had made that mistake, it would have been too dark for them to make it home safely.

The moral of the story is, sometimes we are led down a path which appears to be wrong, or we may not understand. But in the end, it was necessary to go down that path so that we can be confident that we are on the right path, without doubts, and arrive at our destination safely.

Lest anyone be confused, the Lord would never lead us to the path of sin. But, He does lead us down roads that can be quite bumpy, with many twists and turns, to give us valuable experiences. These experiences will help us learn and grow and strengthen us.

We should always trust in the Lord. Even though we may not understand why we are going down the road we are going down. He will never lead us astray. If we trust in the Lord, and follow His Commandments, we will arrive at our final destination (eternal life) safely.

That’s my two cents.