cydlawenhau: the blog

Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get bet­ter. My dec­la­ra­tion is that that is pre­cisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us, espe­cially in times of need.

Thirty years ago last month, a lit­tle fam­ily set out to cross the United States, every earthly pos­ses­sion they owned packed into the small­est trailer avail­able. No money, an old car, they drove exactly 34 miles up the high­way, at which point their belea­guered car erupted.

The young father sur­veyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trust­ing wife and two inno­cent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the south­ern Utah metrop­o­lis of Kanar­rav­ille, pop­u­la­tion then, I sup­pose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind cit­i­zen offered to drive back to the stranded fam­ily. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection.

After more than two hours of check­ing and recheck­ing, no imme­di­ate prob­lem could be detected, so once again the jour­ney was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same loca­tion on that high­way with exactly the same pyrotech­nics from under the hood, the car exploded again. Now feel­ing more fool­ish than angry, the cha­grined young father once more left his trust­ing loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man pro­vid­ing the water said, “Either you or that fel­low who looks just like you ought to get a new radi­a­tor for that car.” He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.

“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-​four miles,” I answered. “How much far­ther do you have to go?” “Twenty-​six hun­dred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two lit­tle kid­dies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make that trip in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.

Just two weeks ago, I drove by that exact spot. For just an instant I thought per­haps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two lit­tle chil­dren. Just ahead of them I imag­ined that I saw a young fel­low walk­ing toward Kanar­rav­ille, the weight of a young father’s fear evi­dent in his pace.

In that imag­i­nary instant, I couldn’t help call­ing out to him: “Don’t you quit. You keep walk­ing. You keep try­ing. There is help and hap­pi­ness ahead.” Some bless­ings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.
Read the full talk here.