Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

When I was engaged to be married, I was first introduced to off-road recreation by my soon-to-be in-laws. In Utah, we called it four wheeling. In my fiancé’s family they called it “quadding”. Whatever you want to call it, I had no clue what I was doing. But, to not deter my bride-to-be, I donned my heroic, daredevil mask and strived to exude a strong air of confidence as I jumped behind the wheel and had my fiancé slide in behind me. I’d like to say that I was a natural, but I was at least passable, and my fiancé didn’t dump me for my lack of spine.

The next desert outing came after our vows, so I felt a little less in the hot seat and was able to enjoy myself that much more. On one ride, I had my younger sister-in-law in tow on a quad that might more aptly be called a tractor. It had rained the previous day, so the ground was soft and muddy. We raced up an unexplored, narrow incline only to slow as we approached the top. We quickly discovered that the path ended in a sharp drop off. Despite my desire to be a carefree daredevil, I was no Evel Knievel. I slammed on the brakes and attempted to turn around to head back the way we had come. But the path was too narrow and the quad was too large, and my only hope was to slowly descend in reverse. At this point, my sister-in-law was ready to abandon me, and my own insecurities led me to want to abandon myself as well. I hugged those brakes, but the thick mud took over, and the machine continued to slide down the incline gathering speed. I quickly lost control and shouted at my sister to jump off and get out of the way. As the quad began to flip over, it was all I could do to shoulder the weight of it long enough for the two of us to scramble free. One or two fruitless minutes were spent in vain before I realized that I didn’t have the muscle power to flip that massive tractor of a quad back upright, and I began the long walk of shame back to our base camp while my sister-in-law guarded the downed toy.

Well, it took a long time for the jokes and dinner table stories to change topics from my moment of shame to some other more humorous family lore. In fact what it took was my brother-in-law. When he began courting my wife’s sister, I silently watched and prayed that he could take the scepter and crown away from me and become the new family Darwin Award candidate. And as I got to know him better, I realized that it was just a matter of time before he would do something to rival me. Of course I say this in jest, but sure enough, on one family outing, he climbed up onto a racing quad and collided headlong into a large cement wall. Of course I took no pleasure in his pain or the trauma of the moment, but the situation was pretty darn funny, and I was glad to be on the other side of a family joke for a change. But even then, I knew it was only a matter of time before I stole the crown right back. And steal it I did.

Several years later, we were out for our seasonal quadding foray into the desert. We chose a new location that had a great deal of trails and paths extending in all directions for as far as the eye could see. When my turn came, I climbed up on a small quad that had great maneuverability but not a lot of power. I started off up a long incline that led up to the top of a tall and long ridge. On the far side of the ridge, I could see a sandy wash that ran parallel and had many offshoots. I rode up and down this wash a few times and explored over a few of the nearby hills before I decided to head back to camp. By the time I returned to the wash and the path leading up and over the ridge to the camp, one of the front tires had lost a fair amount of air, and I found it more difficult to climb steep inclines at a run. I tried to climb this return path two or three times with difficulty and found that I could only get about halfway up before losing power and rolling back down the incline. The failed attempts shook me up a little, and I began to lose confidence in myself as a driver. I decided to drive farther down the wash to find a gentler incline to ascend back over the ridge. I attempted a few other paths that I found led farther away from camp rather than back over this ridge. After a little while of seemingly driving in circles, I began to lose my sense of direction. When I eventually climbed to the top of what I thought was this ridge that separated me from more familiar terrain and my family’s camp, I only found unfamiliar land in all directions. At this point, I tried to retrace my tracks, heading in directions that I thought would get me back to familiar ground, only to doubt myself, double back, and try yet another path. By now, I had even lost the original wash as a reference. I was lost.

Prior to this moment, I had seen a few other riders as I had roamed about. A few times, I felt prompted to ask for help, but felt too proud and confident in my own ability to stop and ask for directions. But that was just me being a typical, stubborn man, right? As I realized that I was getting nowhere on my own, I finally decided to break down and get some help. I heard an engine in the distance and headed in that direction. When I flagged down the rider, I described the base camp my family was using. This gentleman knew the area and pointed me in the general direction. With newfound determination, I raced off down a path in that direction only to find that the path veered off a few times, and I quickly lost my bearing. Again, I was lost and disoriented. I heard another rider, and got help a second time. This rider was very familiar with the area and offered to escort me back, but I declined the help, again took a bearing, and raced off on my own yet again. When I found myself lost a few minutes later, I regretted declining further help. This regret quickly faded as I found a third rider and asked for directions. Stubborn to the end, I was determined to only accept a prod in the right direction, resolved to get to my destination on my own steam.

After this third prodding failed to lead me back to camp, I found myself completely alone. There wasn’t a fourth rider, or a fifth. I had been given three chances to humble myself and accept a helpful hand, and I had failed. By now, my tires were running extremely low, and I had lost all confidence in myself as a driver and all sense of direction. I was near breaking point. I shut off the engine, listening in vain for that fourth rider. My desperation humbled me to the point where I was finally ready to let someone else do more than just point me in a general direction. I was ready to let someone hook up a chain and tow me out if necessary. I waited several long minutes without hearing another soul. I felt totally alone, with no idea how I was going to get back home. I tried to restart the engine, but had unexpected problems with the starter. I knew I needed help, and it seemed like there was none to be had.

Why didn’t I drop to my knees and pray? I had learned about the power of prayer as a child in Primary and in my child-like faith had often longed for moments like this where the Lord would sail in to rescue me from my hopeless predicament in some miraculous, faith-promoting way. I knew without a doubt that He could and would rescue me. But I felt undeserving this day. Not just because of my stubborn pride in refusing help from these other riders. This physical helplessness and isolation in the desert had led me to think of my spiritual isolation from my God, to think on my weaknesses and sins which are many. And these weighed extremely heavy on me at this moment when I, in my pride, did not want to allow the Lord to extend his mercy and help out a lost and imperfect soul. I didn’t feel worthy of a miracle and didn’t feel worthy to pray for such. In my self-condemnation and my pride, I denied the Lord’s grace through my refusal to pray.

I struggled with that starter for who knows how long before I was compelled to humility. I had to swallow my pride and fall to my knees. Tears sprang to my eyes, not so much over my physical predicament but more due to my personal spiritual insecurities. My prayer was simple. I promised the Lord that if He would send help, I would fully allow myself to be helped. I could not do it alone, so if He in His mercy gave me one more chance, I would humbly accept the help of another.

I arose from my knees and was shortly able to jump start the quad. I started driving, trying to yield my direction to the promptings of the Spirit. I didn’t have a profound spiritual enlightening. I heard no voice; there was no Liahona sent to guide me. I simply drive on with a hymn in my heart, repeating my promise to ask for complete help over and over in my mind. As I drove along, I thought about all of my weaknesses and my personal struggles in life. I thought about how natural it was for me in life when requesting the assistance of another to accept a prod in the right direction and then race off determined to cross the finish line on my own. That prodding might come from a meaningful Sunday School lesson, by partaking of the Sacrament, through a special tender mercy of the Lord where the Spirit would strongly prompt me to a course of action, or by the loving counsel of a loved one or a Priesthood leader. But it is in my nature, perhaps it is part of the natural man in all of us, to want to save myself, to want to do it on my own. And in this moment, where my spiritual weaknesses and shortcomings seemed so heavy on my shoulders, I knew that the Lord wanted me to keep this promise, not just in this moment of physical tribulation, but also in my personal life. How many times had He sent riders to help me through my personal struggles? How many times had I casually dismissed that help and wandered aimlessly on my own? And so, continuing along, with a hymn in my heart, I renewed my promise to break my emotional isolation in my personally life and to more fully open my heart to those others who would stand to help me in my struggles.

Eventually, help did come. I came across some guys in a truck who were somewhat lost as well, and I asked them if I could follow them out as they looked for an outlet. On a few climbs, they had to patiently wait as my quad struggled to reach the top. When my engine stalled, they helped me jump it again. At one point, they even hooked up a rope to help pull me to the top of an especially difficult clime. When we eventually found a base camp, it wasn’t the same one I’d started at. We parked the quad, and they gave me a lift out onto the highway and back to the other inlet where my family was anxiously waiting. As we pulled up and I saw the sheriff trucks, it dawned on me how long I had actually been lost and reality set in. The sheriff’s informed me that a Search and Rescue helicopter was about to be deployed and it was lucky I had arrived just then. And as my father-in-law made jokes with the patrolmen about his son-in-law engineer who would have had difficulty fending off the coyotes without his Eagle Scout mother there to consult, I knew that I had stolen the crown of family jester right back from my brother-in-law.

When Elder Holland spoke in general conference the following month about The Ministry of Angels, I was especially touched by his message and I wished that I had contact information for those brothers in the truck who had been angels for me in my time of need. Speaking of angels, Elder Holland said,

“Usually such beings are not seen. Sometimes they are. But seen or unseen they are always near. Sometimes their assignments are very grand and have significance for the whole world. Sometimes the messages are more private. Occasionally the angelic purpose is to warn. But most often it is to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, guidance in difficult times… In the course of life all of us spend time in “dark and dreary” places, wildernesses, [deserts], circumstances of sorrow or fear or discouragement… But I testify that angels are still sent to help us, even as they were sent to help Adam and Eve, to help the prophets, and indeed to help the Savior of the world Himself.

"I have spoken here of heavenly help, of angels dispatched to bless us in time of need. But when we speak of those who are instruments in the hand of God, we are reminded that not all angels are from the other side of the veil. Some of them we walk with and talk with—here, now, every day. Some of them reside in our own neighborhoods. Some of them gave birth to us, and in my case, one of them consented to marry me. Indeed heaven never seems closer than when we see the love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that angelic is the only word that comes to mind."

These spirit brothers of mine truly can only be described as angels to me. Surely, they forgot about me and my plight minutes after dropping me off that day. But, whether they knew it or not, these men were sent to me in my time of need for a purpose. And that purpose was not just to bring me out of my physical trial… As an answer to my simple prayer, these men helped to bring me out of a spiritual and emotional isolation in my personal life as well. They helped to teach me that we are never beyond help—we are never too unworthy to fall to our knees and humbly ask for help. They also taught me that if we are going to ask for help, we must be willing to fully accept that help. Truly, whenever I have strived to save myself on my own, it seems that the harder I try, the worse my predicament becomes. This day, I was carried out of the desert in the arms of angels. And I learned a powerful lesson in submissiveness. I love the powerful words of King Benjamin:

For the natural man, [including our reliance on ourselves and our stubborn self-will] is an enemy to God and will be forever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man… and becometh as a child: submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeith fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Yield. Submit. Willing. Humble. These words are so contrary to the pride of the natural man. When our lives warrant a course correction, the first step is recognition. We must freely admit that there is a need for change, that our lives are headed in the wrong direction or that our lives could be headed in a better direction. Perhaps our lives do not seem unmanageable. Perhaps the necessary corrections are indeed minor. But when we humbly inquire of our Lord and Savior, He will show unto us our weaknesses; He will show us who He wants us to become. But along with this recognition, however dire or lost our circumstances may seem, we must likewise recognize the all-important need for a helping hand along the way. The Lord does not just want to help us see that we are lost and tell us where we should go on our own. He wants to take us there Himself, whether He takes us by the hand Himself or sends a special angel to serve His purposes. With a firm faith in His divine grace and healing wings, we can and we will find rescue and eventual refuge in the safety of His fold.

In the aftermath of my desert adventure, one of my sisters-in-law often burst into song, hymning the words, “Out in the desert he wandered… hungry and helpless and cold…” Of course her antics brought a smile to all, but the words of that hymn truly relate directly to my experience that day:

Dear to the heart of the Shepherd, dear are the lambs of his fold.
Some from the pastures are straying, hungry and helpless and cold.
See, the Good Shepherd is seeking, seeking the lambs that are lost,
Bringing them in with rejoicing, saved at such infinite cost.

Dear to the heart of the Shepherd, dear are the “ninety and nine”;
Dear are the sheep that have wandered out in the desert to pine.
Hark! He is earnestly calling, tenderly pleading today:
“Will you not seek for my lost ones, off from my shelter astray?”

Out in the desert they wander, hungry and helpless and cold;
Off to the rescue he hastens, bringing them back to the fold.

I think we all take turns either being the one lost lamb or one of the ninety and nine that is invited to join in the angelic rescue. Unfortunately, through my wilderness excursion and through other numerous experiences, I too often find myself as the one requiring rescue, the one who pridefully resists that rescue when it comes. My prayer is, first and foremost, that I might be a little more humble, a little more prepared to accept the divine ministry of angels and the tender mercies of my Savior as He rescues me from myself. May I be a little more submissive, meek, humble, willing, and childlike. My prayer would also be that I might be in tune with the Spirit and serve my brothers and sisters, my fellow lambs, as one of the ninety and nine when invited to join my Shepherd in the search and the rescue of His other lost sheep. I pray that I might be able to say with the many that I dwell safely among the flock of the Good Shepherd, that when the one that is lost is crying out for rescue, I might be an instrument in the hands of my Shepherd in bringing that dear lamb back to the fold.

Elder Holland concluded his powerful talk on angels with these words:

“My beloved brothers and sisters, I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. ‘[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.’ On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.

“May we all believe more readily in, and have more gratitude for, the Lord’s promise as contained in one of President Monson’s favorite scriptures: ‘I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, . . . my Spirit shall be in your [heart], and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.’ In the process of praying for those angels to attend us, may we all try to be a little more angelic ourselves—with a kind word, a strong arm, a declaration of faith and ‘the covenant wherewith [we] have covenanted.’ Perhaps then we can be emissaries sent from God when someone, perhaps a Primary child [or an engineer son-in-law], is crying, ‘Darkness . . . afraid . . . river . . . alone.’”

I echo those words of testimony as one who has wandered in the desert alone. There are indeed angels among us. And the Lord is indeed mindful of us in our darkest moments, whether they be of our own making or not. I am thankful for the Good Shepherd and His constant, tender, pleading call to me and, above all, His infinite patience as I learn to be a child once again.

God bless!