In dark waters, lifesaving buoys can make the difference between safety and disaster. We and our friends learned how vital those red and green points of light can be.
A Place for Caution
A few years ago, we invited a neighborhood family to join us in our annual campout at Lake Powell, a large lake between Utah and Arizona. This very arid, man-made lake was created by damming the surging Colorado River, thus creating more canyon-infused shoreline then the entire coast of California.
An easy place to get lost, and the darker it is, the more threatening it becomes.
Thanks to safety-conscious park guardians, lifesaving buoys protect recreational boating enthusiasts—alternating green and red lights, approximately a mile apart. Each has a number, ascending in placement up the lake, and the small colored light at the top. They are placed in the deepest area of the main lake channel, guiding boaters to find a chosen canyon as they travel up or down that central artery.
A Plan with Changes
Our friends, the Andersons, were to met us on the dock at 5:30p.m., to give us enough time before dark to travel up the windy, sometimes narrow lake to our campsite 20+ miles away. However, their travel plans were altered to arrive at 7:30p.m., just as the sun was passing behind the sandstone cliffs in the west.
Our boat, over-crowded with sleeping bags, duffle bags, and family members, traveling up the lake more than 20 miles in the dark, might have been a disaster waiting to happen. There wasn’t even a moon that night. At 15 minutes into our hour-long trip, we couldn’t see 20 feet in front of us.
I didn’t mention the dangers to our friends, but we had a good chance of hitting a sandbar or sandstone monolith. And there were those turns we had to make as we wound our way up the lake. The possibilities were chilling; the reality was rescued by the small red and green lights on top of the buoys.
As I focused in the intense darkness on the particular light ahead of me, I could guide the boat from buoy to buoy. For location of the buoys in the deepest part of the channel, I had to trust in the expertise and direction of our national park guardians.
When we finally arrived at Mile Marker 22, I could see the light of our houseboat safely parked ashore, 300 yards away. Even with guiding lights on our boat, I know I couldn’t have steered safely to our campsite without the constant and comforting glow of those lifesaving buoys.
Lifesaving Buoys in Life’s Journey
We have many kinds of lifesaving buoys to guide and steady us in our life’s voyage. Commandments are this kind of blessing.
According to D.Todd Christofferson,
God sees things in their true perspective, and He shares that perspective with us through His commandments, effectively guiding us around the pitfalls, [barriers], and potholes of mortality toward eternal joy.
God knows everything, including the shapes and routes of the channels, and we can trust the way He leads us: point by point, insight by insight, as He gives us what we need as we need it. Our personal and spiritual growth come from learning through commandment by commandment, decision by decision, day by day, buoy by buoy.
This process requires strong faith that the Lord is leading us from one truth to the next. But when we follow this pattern with faith and confidence in our Savior’s consistent guidance, we know it will lead us where we need to go.
Elder Richard G. Scott taught of the importance of seeing “the guideposts in our life”:
If we were more alert to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, we would see them before we reach them and thereby be guided more effectively. This process requires self-mastery, self-control, and a heart willing to accept change.
Not all of our fellow travelers (boaters or otherwise) know lights which are available and where to find them. Sharing the lights we know and recognize is our responsibility. They need to understand the lights in His love and charity, his teachings and commandments.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ taught those who followed His light to extend it to others, applying it to their lives as He always did so well.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)
To reach the goal of a lighted city, they may begin by taking the candle out from under a bushel and placing it on a candlestick where all in the house may see it and benefit. An easy first step. But the light must shine “before men,” so making it visible by “good works” will take it further. Christ’s ultimate desire is to have his followers bring others the light of God’s glory. But they must first advance step by step, effort by effort (or buoy by buoy) to be where He intends them to be.
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