1991
Packing Your Wagon
July 1991


“Packing Your Wagon,” New Era, July 1991, 35

Packing Your Wagon

From a devotional address given at Brigham Young University on November 13, 1990.

If the going is too heavy, maybe you need to lighten your load.

Some time ago, my niece Shelly called my home to report what sounded to me like a condition of epidemic proportion. She was in college, and it was just before finals. Shelly explained that she and her roommates were stressed out and needed a place to escape for the weekend. I, of course, was delighted to provide the place. They said there had hardly been a weekend or even a day when they had not been completely overloaded. “So much to do and so little time” was their comment as they talked of schedules, commitments, expectations, pressures, and even some anxieties about dates, deadlines, decisions, finances, future obligations, and unlimited opportunities.

Too often we allow ourselves to be driven from one deadline, activity, or opportunity to the next. We check events off our calendar and think, “After this week things will let up,” or “After this semester …” or “After graduation, then the pressure will ease.” We live with false expectations. Unless we learn to take control of the present, we will always live in anticipation of better days in the future. And when those days arrive, we shall still be looking ahead, making it difficult to enjoy the here and now. The beautiful fall leaves come and go and in our busyness we miss them.

We live in a time when we can do more, have more, see more, accumulate more, and want more than any time we have ever known. I believe if possible the adversary would keep us busily engaged in a multitude of trivial things in an effort to keep us distracted from the few vital things that make all of the difference.

I believe the most destructive threat of our day is not nuclear war, not famine, not economic disaster, but rather the despair, the discouragement, the despondency, the defeat caused by the discrepancy between what we believe to be right and how we live our lives. Much of the emotional and social illness of our day is caused when people think one way and act another. The turmoil inside is destructive to the Spirit and to the emotional well-being of one who tries to live without clearly defined principles, values, standards, and goals.

The question shouldn’t be “What will people think?” but “What will I think of myself?” We must have our own clearly defined values burning brightly within. Values provide an inner court to which we can appeal for judgment of our performance and our choices.

We live in a time when too often success is determined by the things we gather, accumulate, collect, measure, and even compare in relation to what others gather and accumulate. This pattern of living invites its own consequences and built-in stress.

It is as we learn to simplify and reduce, prioritize and cut back on the excesses, that we have enough time and money for the essentials, for all that we ultimately want and even more.

Last fall some friends came to our home with their children and brought with them a case of the most beautiful, large peaches I have ever seen. They were almost unbelievable in their size, their beauty, and their flavor. Brother Pitt explained that they had just won first prize at the county fair for their peaches, and they had an orchard full of them. I asked how they produced such remarkable fruit, and they were eager to explain. “We learned how to prune the peach trees and thin the weak fruit,” they said. “It’s hard work and must be done regularly.”

“We also learned what happens when you don’t prune,” said one of the children. Their father had wisely suggested that three trees in the orchard be left to grow without the harsh results of the pruning knife. They explained to me that the fruit from those trees was not only very small in size but did not have the sweet taste of the other fruit. The lesson was obvious. There was no question in their minds about the far-reaching value of careful pruning.

Now I believe it would be very easy for an inexperienced gardener to approach the task of reducing and cutting back with such vigor that he might take a saw and cut the tree down the center, through the trunk and into the roots. Surely it would be cut back, but what of the hope for the fruit? Wise pruning, like good gardening, takes careful thought. It is only when you are clear in your mind concerning your values that you are free to simplify and reduce without putting at risk that which matters most. Until we determine what is of greatest worth, we are caught up in the unrealistic idea that everything is possible.

We read about the pioneers who, in the early history of the Church, left their possessions, “their things,” and headed west. Those who were with the handcart company, who would push or pull their carts into the wilderness, would give much thought to what they would make room for in their wagons and what they would be willing to leave behind. Even after the journey began, some things had to be unloaded along the way if people were to reach their destination.

Today our tests are different. We are not called to load our wagons and head west. Our frontier and wilderness are different, but we too must decide what we will make room for in our wagons and what is of highest value.

When my grandmother left her home in England as a young immigrant, she left everything behind because someone taught her of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She joined the Saints in America and eventually moved to Canada. For fear of being persuaded to remain in England, she did not tell her family of her conversion to the Church or of her plans to leave. That first letter she received from her mother reads in part:

“My dearest daughter … whatever on earth has caused you to go out of your own country and away from all your friends, I cannot imagine. You say, ‘Don’t fret.’ How do you think I can help it when such a blow as that come to struck me all up in a heap? You say you are happy, but I can’t think it, for I am sure I could not have been happy to have gone into a foreign country and left you behind. You say you will come again, but I don’t think you will hesitate your life over the deep waters again. When I think about it, I feel wretched. You had a good place and a good home to come to whenever you liked. And I must say that I loved the very ground you walked upon, and now I am left to fret in this world. But still, all the same for that, I wish you good luck and hope the Lord will prosper you in every way. I remain, your loving Mother.”

They never saw each other again in this earth life. And none of my grandmother’s family joined the Church. However, their temple work has been done for them.

What is it that drives a people to sacrifice all, if necessary, to receive the blessings available only in the temple? It is their faith and a spiritual witness of the importance of our covenants with God and our immense possibilities. It is in the temple, the house of the Lord, that we participate in ordinances and covenants that span the distance between heaven and earth and prepare us to return to God’s presence and enjoy the blessings of eternal families and eternal life.

As we take an inventory of the things we are carrying in our wagons and make decisions about what we will be willing to leave behind and what we will cling to, we have guidance. The Lord has given us a great promise to which I bear my testimony. He has said, “Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you. Seek to bring forth and establish my Zion. Keep my commandments in all things. And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God” (D&C 14:5–7).

When we understand that our covenants with God are essential to our eternal life, these sacred promises become the driving force that helps us lighten our load, prioritize our activities. eliminate the excesses, accelerate our progress, and reduce the distractions that could, if not guarded, get us mired down in mud while other wagons move on. If any of you are burdened with sin and sorrow, transgression and guilt, then unload your wagon and fill it with obedience, faith and hope, and a regular renewal of your covenants with God.

Photography by Welden Andersen