Why I Love the Book of Mormon or . . . What is Wrong With My GPS?

I have decided each weekend to post something about how the Book of Mormon applies to my life. This is not intended to be deep doctrine or even profound (as you will soon see if you continue reading :-) but it is meant to be a way to express my love for the book to my children who hopefully will read this.

So . . . This past week I was studying about wicked King Noah and how his evil doings influenced the people in his kingdom to become wicked as well. (Mosiah 11)The Lord sent the prophet Abinadi to warn the people that if they did not repent, they would end up in bondage. The people refused to change and the prophecies were fulfilled.

I found it interesting that the people were initially righteous under King Zeniff (Noah's father) but then got off the right path and started down a path that led to their captivity. They were sent a warning by a prophet to "turn around" and get back on the right path, but they ignored the warning--and in fact, killed the messenger.

That thought reminded me of a mountain biking trip I once took with my friend Lisa to Moab, Utah. Neither of us had been to Moab before, but armed with a map and a GPS system, we were confident we knew the way.

Some where along the trip, however, we got on the wrong road. Okay, I know you are wondering how that was possible with both a map and a GPS system, but now I will tell you something about myself you may not know. I am totally directionally challenged. And there was a little detour in the road that confused us. So there we were going in the wrong direction, but not knowing it.

Although our GPS system did try to warn us. In fact it kept telling us to "go forward 200 feet and make a legal U-turn." We couldn't figure out why we would have to go forward and then backward so we ignored the warning. Once Lisa did pull out the map and checked it, but the road we were on was very close to the road we wanted to be on , and our road was not marked, so we assumed we were where we wanted to be. . .

Despite, the repeated GPS warnings.

And eventually we turned off the GPS.

Then we saw smoke stacks in the distance. That is when we knew we should have listened. The smoke stacks are in Page, Arizona, which was definitely NOT the direction we should have been traveling.

After a quick lunch we made the hour trip back to the main road, continued forward a bit and then got on the path we needed and finished our journey to Moab, arriving two and a half hours later than planned.

What struck me was how Lisa and I were much like King Noah; so convinced we were doing what was right, we refused to listen to the warnings to turn around. And just like King Noah, we ended up in a place we didn't want to be. Luckily for us, we corrected our mistake and eventually arrived safely--which of course, is much better than the king who ended up being burned to death.

But my lesson for my children is this . . . as you journey through life, listen to those warning signals and make the corrections needed. It is easy to get so busy that we don't realize we have strayed from the path we want to be on. So, heed the promptings of your conscience, the Spirit and the words of the Prophets because the right path is the only safe way to travel.

And that little lesson from the life of King Noah, is one reason why I love the Book of Mormon.