“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out, it’s the pebble in your shoe.” — Muhammad Ali
I walk a lot since moving to Europe. A lot.
We don’t own a car and European cities aren’t built for cars anyways. And even taking the bus and train involves a lot of walking.
Additionally, we sightsee quite a bit and an inherent trait of sightseeing is walking.
One thing I’ve noticed about walking everywhere, besides the fact that walking doesn’t actually help me maintain any sort of physical fitness, is that I get rocks in my shoes with alarming frequency. No matter the type of shoe I wear, pebbles always seem to be able to sneak in.
You've experienced this as well and I'm sure you can agree that and getting a rock in your shoe is incredibly annoying.
Usually when I get a rock in my shoe I leave it for a while and try to ignore it. Instead I focus on the enjoyable nature of the company I’m with or the grandeur of the city I’m walking through. This works fairly well for a short time until the annoyance grows too strong and I have to stop, take my shoe off, shake out the rock, and put my shoe back on.
There are two things I notice every time as a result that never cease to amaze me:
One, the relief and comfort of removing the tiny pebble are completely disproportionate to the actual size of the pebble.
Two, the effort of and inconvenience of stopping to take out the pebble are minimal compared to the feelings of relief after it’s gone.
These are not earth-shattering revelations. I’ve known these things for many years. Yet nearly every time I persist in trying to ignore the pebble rather than stopping to remedy the situation right away. Why on earth do I try to ignore this discomfort for so long?
It seems ridiculous, given that I know the benefits of stopping for 30 seconds (or less) and removing the pebble in my shoe.
I can’t help but see a parallel between this situation and similar laziness or intentional ignorance we are all guilty of in various aspects of our lives. Especially in our quest to “be ye therefore perfect” even as our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ are perfect we try to ignore the pebbles and take the lazy or complacent route in order to avoid the immediate inconvenience of bettering our situation.
Let’s discuss this intentional ignorance and the laziness and complacency and how to overcome both.
Intentional Ignorance
First, how often do we ignore the opportunity to repent and feel the relieving power of the Atonement?
I’m not necessarily talking about repenting of large sins that keep us from the temple or priesthood service. Those are boulders or mountains that obviously make our progression impossible.
Rather, I’m talking about the lack of daily repentance in the little things and the intentional ignorance of our favorite sins. These sins are actions or inactions that we have found a way to justify or push to the back of our minds as we openly recognize our ability and strivings to keep the “big” commandments. Yet despite the seeming inconsequential nature of these actions or inactions, they cause in us a cognitive dissonance whether we recognize the reason or not.
These actions or inactions are, perhaps, easier to ignore because they don’t preclude us from callings or temple service. They don’t have an obvious or immediate negative impact on our ability to build good family relationships and create homes in which the spirit can usually dwell. Maintaining the status quo through the other good things we’re doing is confused as progression.
Yet, like a pebble in our shoes, any aspect of our lives that does not match up exactly with the Savior’s life takes at least a bit of the enjoyment from everything we do and negatively impacts our ability to feel the Spirit and progress toward our eternal goals. We can ignore it for a time and even forget it every so often, but eventually, the nagging will wear us down and begin to have a greater negative influence on other aspects of our lives. The principle “by small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6) works negatively as well.
When we do repent and take the necessary steps to stop doing whatever it is that is slowing us down, how wonderful is the feeling? For me, getting rid of the stupid little action or inaction is like removing the pebble from my shoe. The actions themselves may be quite small and simple and often feel amazingly disproportionate to the immense feelings of peace and freedom that accompany repentance.
Laziness and Complacency
Second, how often do we put aside the activities we know will bless our lives in order to make time for very temporal and short-sighted activities?
Elder Sabin of the Seventy very expertly taught this point in a recent General Conference. He told the story of a camping trip he went on in which one of his scouts chose to sleep in the cold rather than in his sleeping bag, simply to save the effort of rolling up his sleeping bag in the morning. Recounted Elder Sabin:
“[The scout] froze for hours because he was trying to save five minutes of work. We may think, ‘How foolish! Who would ever do that?’ Well, we do it all the time in much more dangerous ways. We are, in effect, refusing to unroll our spiritual sleeping bags when we don’t take the time to sincerely pray, study, and earnestly live the gospel each day; not only will the fire go out, but we will be unprotected and grow spiritually cold.”
Being tired, allowing ourselves to be distracted by Netflix, failing to plan well, keeping up with “life” on Instagram, etc. are not excuses that will protect us from the heat or spiritually-damaging hail and mighty whirlwinds that are sure to come.
Alma taught that it is the smallest faith-promoting actions will cause our seed of faith to grow:
“if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root: and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.” (Alma 32:41)
Likewise, the lack of these actions will cause our seed of faith to wither up and die:
“But if ye neglect the tree, and take not thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root: and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.” (Alma 32:38)
When we are lazy or fail to properly prioritize the small daily and weekly gospel activities of praying, studying the scriptures, and otherwise keeping our lives finely tuned to the teachings of Jesus Christ, our faith cannot grow. As we justify leaving church after Sacrament meeting, fail to reach out and serve others, or find an “exception” to not keep the Sabbath day holy once, then twice, we fail to work towards the great things the Lord has in store for us if we are but obedient.
Much like the pebbles in our shoes, in the moment the small and simple things may not seem to make a difference. In the moment they are easy to ignore or become complacent about. But these pebbles will eventually wear us down.
The key is to trust in the Lord. We must learn and understand that repenting and relying on His Atonement is the key to happiness and that the small and simple actions he requires will provide disproportionately-wonderful blessings--both temporally and eternally.
And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls. (Alma 37:7)
Jeremy
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