I felt that I should write a little bit of the things that have weighed heavily
upon my mind as of late. Nephi said in the second book of Nephi in
fourth chapter in the fifteenth verse “upon these I write the things of
my soul” I wish to do the same. First, to express my own thoughts and
express gratitude which as of late I haven’t shown. Second, for those
who may be struggling to find answers to questions and doubts that have
weighed heavily on their mind. As I write I ask for your patience as I
am weak in writing. If you do read my words I wish the spirit will speak
to you more than my words do for he is the true teacher.
In the twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah the Lord inspires Isaiah to write the
Parable of the Plowman. I will like to make attempt to describe to what I
believe these symbols mean.
“Give ye ear, and hear my voice;
hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Doth
he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the
face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the
cumin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the
rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and
doth teach him.”
God instructed the plowman how to plant the
fitches, cumin, barley and rye. Each crop has its own way of planting
each requiring a different conditions and locations in the field. Cumin
and fitches were planted in rows in the middle of the field, the Barley
was planted in the wet and marshy places, and the rye was planted on the
outside providing protection for the rest of the crop. As read these
word and tried figure out what they really mean the thought dawned on me
that God is planting us in this life in specific families, specific
situations, specific times. God knows what we need. He knows how to
plant us and where to plant us. Corrie ten Boom said “Every experience
God gives us; every person He puts in our lives is the perfect
preparation for the future that only He can see.” God knows you
individually! There have been many times in my life where I have
questioned that beautiful truth, but no matter how much we doubt truth
never changes. If we doubt in law of gravity and choose to test it by
jumping off of a cliff we will soon find out that the truth of Gravity
is real. Now, in my opinion, realizing that gravity is real is a lot
easier than knowing God loves you especially in times of trial. Knowing
that God loves you doesn’t always make a trial seem easier but it does
give us hope. Elder Jeffery R. Holland said, in his talk an high priest
of good things to come, speaking to those who struggle,
“Cling to
your faith. Hold on to your hope. “Pray always, and be believing.” 5
Indeed, as Paul wrote of Abraham, he “against [all] hope believed in
hope” and “staggered not … through unbelief.” He was “strong in faith”
and was “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able … to
perform.” 6Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your
clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He
does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is
your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His
children shed. In spite of this counsel, I know some of you do truly
feel at sea, in the most frightening sense of that term. Out in troubled
waters, you may even now be crying with the poet:
It darkens. I have lost the ford.
There is a change on all things made.
The rocks have evil faces, Lord,
And I am [sore] afraid. 7
No, it is not without a recognition of life’s tempests but fully and
directly because of them that I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s
power to calm the storm. Always remember in that biblical story that He
was out there on the water also, that He faced the worst of it right
along with the newest and youngest and most fearful. Only one who has
fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us—as well as
the sea—to “be still.” Only one who has taken the full brunt of such
adversity could ever be justified in telling us in such times to “be of
good cheer.” Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of
positive thinking, though positive thinking is much needed in the world.
No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be
very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them. But
even as the Lord avoids sugary rhetoric, He rebukes faithlessness and He
deplores pessimism. He expects us to believe!
No one’s eyes were
more penetrating than His, and much of what He saw pierced His heart.
Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want and
despair. To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was “a
man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
Trials have a way of
slowing time down and making it seem that you are abandoned and that God
is not listening. My mom once told me something that I have never
forgotten she said, “Even the teacher is silent during the test.” Which
brings me to the second half of the Parable of the Plowman.
“For
the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a
cart wheel turned about upon the cumin; but the fitches are beaten out
with a staff and the cumin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he
will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart,
nor bruise it with his horsemen.”
The harvest of each crop is
specific for its needs. The cumin and the fitches were beaten out with a
staff or a road because it required little effort harvest. When
harvesting barley, a different method of harvesting was used. The most
common instrument used in threshing was the threshing board, also
sometimes referred to as threshing sledge. Usually it consisted of two
connected boards studded with sharp stones. These stones can be replaced
as they are worn. In modern times iron pieces or saws were also used. A
threshing board was then hauled by a donkey, horse, or a cow with its
handler sitting or standing on the threshing sledge to add weight. Just
as God instructed the plowman on how to plow his field so he knows how
to “harvest” us.
God knows what trials we need. Just as the
threshing sledge is used to harvest the barley so are trials used to
purify us. The cumin was only harvested by hand because if a threshing
sledge was used it would ruin the crop where as if a rod was used to
harvest the barley it would have lead to little result. Trials are not
easy and in fact require a lot of pressure. As we ponder the symbolism
and imagery of the savior as he suffered the atonement in the Garden of
Gethsemane. Gethsemane means olive press and like olives were pressed
by a large rock in order to make olive oil so the savior was literally
pressed upon by the sins and afflictions of the world until he bled from
every pore. Trials are meant to require something of the soul. How else
are we supposed to gain a testimony of the Savior’s ultimate sacrifice?
There is no other way. God allows trials to happen to use to help us to
grow. Now sometimes we may feel that the trials that God has given us
are too much to bear and often we wish that we more like the cumin and
our trials were less severe but remember God knows us best and he knows
what we need although we may feel we need something different. Trials
may be a result of our own mistakes, the mistakes of others or sometimes
we just have trials because this is a fallen world and there is
“opposition in all things”. Whatever the reason is we are expected by
the Lord to take those trials, learn from them and become more like him.
For those that feel that the storms and waves of life are too
much have hope and believe that God knows you! The first word that God
spoke after centuries of silence was that of a personal name…. “Joseph”
…. So it is with us, if we feel that God has been silent for far too
long and does not listen to your prayers there will come a time where
that silence will be broken and he will speak a personal name… your
name. He knows us individually and loves us more than we can understand.