Is Your Ladder Against the Right Wall?

To my children;


Shari Dew was about to board a flight from New York to Salt Lake when she noticed some excitement among passengers in the gate area. Turns out there were some LDS missionaries waiting for that same flight, and they were all returning from missions in eastern Europe.

When she asked one of them-- a farm boy from Utah -- about his mission to Bulgaria, he said, "It was great!" She said, "I've heard that Bulgaria is pretty challenging for missionaries." He replied, "Oh, it was so hard! You can't imagine how hard it was! My mission must have been the hardest mission in the world!"

Grinning, she asked, "If it was so hard, what made it so great?" He struck a Napoleon-like pose and said, "Because I did what they sent me to do. And I left Bulgaria better than I found it."

Those words kept running through her mind during the flight home, and then she thought, when the time comes for us to pass through the veil don't we all hope to say, "I did what I was sent to do, and I left people I met and places I went better than I found them"?

There's a scriptural term for this: "To fill the measure of our creation," (see Doctrine & Covenants 88:19), meaning to do what God intended us to do while we're here. I once heard this phrase used in a most unusual setting. It was during a television broadcast of a San Francisco 49ers game, and Steve Young was their quarterback. His performance that day was incredible, and there came a point where one of the broadcasters, a former NFL player and member of the Church, Todd Christensen , exclaimed: "Steve Young is certainly filling the measure of his creation today!" There was a noticeable silence from his broadcasting partner who acted as if he'd been spoken to in a foreign language. Ha!

When you get to be my age you realize how quickly life has passed. In the process, you find yourself thinking about lost opportunities and not so wise decisions. And I can tell you it is not a pleasant feeling to read your patriarchal blessing and realize there are promises unfulfilled. I can relate to a statement once made by British actress, Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply): "I have quite a robust relationship with regret."

Each of us was given a "ladder" upon coming to earth. It would be regrettable to spend our time and energy in a lifetime of climbing our respective ladders only to discover, at the end of our lives, that they were leaning against the wrong walls. I encourage each of you to seek the guidance of the Spirit so that you will know whether your ladder is leaning against the right wall, for the world is full of enticing walls which only have false and empty promises waiting at the top.

We're here not just for the climb but to "fill the measure of our creation." I constantly pray we'll have the spiritual insight and discernment to be guided to the right wall for there we will find the blessings of heaven and the rewards for doing what we came here to do.