Why would you ever choose to NOT go to the tree??
It’s a beautiful tree, and the fruit looks perfectly white. Everyone who partakes of it says it is absolutely delicious and fills them with such joy!
So why were large groups of people headed towards the tree, but then walking away?
The mists of darkness – the temptations of the devil.
Isn’t this just PERFECT imagery for how Satan’s temptations distract us?
These people were suddenly choosing not to walk towards the tree because they literally could not see it anymore!
They couldn’t see how beautiful the fruit was, or how happy the people were who were eating it.
All they could see was a mist of darkness.
When I have mists of darkness in my life, where I know that I am specifically being tempted, I have a hard time believing that the precious fruit (God’s love) is really there for me. Following the iron rod to the tree seems a little too good to be true. “All I have to do is to read God’s word and follow it until I feel of His love? Yeah… I don’t have time to read my scriptures tonight. It’s not that important. I’m dealing with some other, bigger things right now.”
We really start to cloud our own judgment.
We aren’t thinking clearly because we honestly can not SEE the happiness at the end of the path.
So how do we escape our mists of darkness? How do we shake off Satan’s temptations so that we can just SEE what our end goal is?
We CLING to the iron rod. We CLING to the word of God.
We don’t let go of the scriptures and church and Conference talks just because we don’t “see the point” right now.
The mists WILL clear. We WILL get to the tree.
As long as we CLING, even when we don’t SEE.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
One Response
Cali,
I just listened to a podcast from Latter-day Saint Magazine and got some beautiful insight. They described the ultimate love of God as described by Nephi’s vision as Jesus Christ. I see that when we forget him and all that he has done for us, we begin to fall into the mists of darkness. I love your insight and appreciate all of your work in spite of a new baby. You are definitely doing what you can to stay on the path and out of the mist of darkness.
Nana