Wheelbarrows of Dirt

My father has a friend named Don Anderson who is blind.  In the true spirit of bravery Don refuses to let his lack of eyesight stop him from doing the things he wants to do.  Sometimes he does need to find creative ways to handle things that might seem simple to us.  My dad told me the following story, and I have remembered it because there is an insightful analogy to my life.

One Saturday afternoon a dump truck brought a huge pile of dirt for a project in Don's backyard.  As typical the truck dumped the dirt in his front yard.  All that dirt needed to be hauled by wheelbarrow across the front yard, around a little flower bed, through the side gate, around a garden box, between a set of decorations onto the patio and dumped on the edge.  Before you ask why he didn't call anyone for help, let me remind you that Bro. Anderson is a guy.

So Don was determined to find a way to haul his dirt to the backyard, but it's hard to count steps and turn angles with a wheelbarrow, and one wrong bounce would create a big mess.  He finally found his solution with several radios.  He set them up where he needed to aim, two on each side of the gate, around the objects, and at the end where the dirt needed to be piled up.  He would load up the wheelbarrow, and aim for the first radio.  He knew when he got close it was time to aim between the two gate radios.  Around the other radios, up to the end where he dumped the dirt.  It took all afternoon, but the dirt was successfully moved.

We live in a dark world, as the Lord said, "And the whole world lieth in sin, and groaneth under darkness and under the bondage of sin." (D&C 84:49)  And yet I have been asked to move mountains.  The path may be straight and narrow, but my feet sometimes lose their way.  How can I navigate through life?  I need spiritual radios set up along my way.

Jesus said, "I am the light which shineth in darkness" (D&C 11:11), and "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (John 14:26)  The spirit acts like those radios, and when I align my life in accordance with the teachings from the Holy Ghost I find myself getting closer to Christ.  It is absolutely critical that I keep my radio on and tuned.

Let me end my story with the same analogy from Harold B. Lee:
          In my home I have a beautiful instrument called a radio.  When everything is in good working order we can dial it to a certain station and pick up a speaker or the voice of a singer all the way across the continent or sometimes  on the other side of the world, bringing them into the front room as though they were almost speaking there.  But, after we had used it for a long time, there were some little delicate instruments or electrical devices on the inside called radio tubes that began to wear out.  When one of them wears out, we get a kind of static – it isn’t so clear.  Another wears out, and if we don’t give it attention it fades in and out… If we don’t give that attention, and another one wears out- well, the radio sits there looking quite like it did before, but something has happened on the inside.  We can’t get any singer.  We can’t get any speaker.
           Now, I say, you and I have within our souls something like what might be said to be a counterpart of those radio tubes.  We might have what we call a ‘Go-to-Sacrament-Meeting’ tube, ‘Keep-the-Word-of-Wisdom’ tube, ‘Pay-Your-Tithing’ tube, ‘Have-Your-Family-Prayers’ tube, ‘Read-the-Scriptures’ tube, and, as one of the most important, that might be said to be the master tube of our whole soul, the ‘Keep-Yourselves-Morally-Clean’ tube.  If one of these becomes worn out by disuse or is not active we fail to keep the commandments of God – it has the same effect upon our spiritual selves that that same worn out instrument in the radio in my home has upon the reception that we otherwise could receive from a distance.
             We get our answer from the source of the power we list to obey.  If we’re keeping the commandments of the Devil, we’ll get the answer from the Devil.  If we’re keeping the commandments of God, we’ll get the commandments from our Heavenly Father for our direction and for our guidance.