Walking Upright

            If you are reading this blog, then I can assume that you can read, have access to a computer, and have an internet connection, making you better off than the vast majority of people who have ever lived on the planet. With the exception of a blight that hit my fruit crop this last year, the vast majority of my problems are first world problems. This can sometimes make it difficult to relate to people in the Old Testament. I have never been a slave, I don’t depend on rainfall for most of my food, and the odds of my home being invaded by a foreign power are very slim. But modernity has brought with it its own set of challenges, challenges that are very real when you are in the middle of them, even though they may seem laughable to people who had to share their farmland with lions. So, here follow a few thoughts about dealing with first world problems. 

            “And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.”

(Leviticus 26:11–13)   

 

            Since we don’t live in tents anymore, God pitching his tent (setting up his tabernacle) among us seems odd. Today we build houses for God, and consecrate them to Him. But the simple fact that God wants to live with us should make us take notice. Why would a cosmically powerful, cosmically good being want to live among His fallen creations? Really, in a cosmic sense, His soul should abhor us as fallen beings, He should refuse to associate with beings that habitually break His commandments, and yet He doesn’t. The only explanation I can come up with for this behavior is that He really loves us. Not in a trite, superfluous sense, but in a He’s-willing-to-get-His-hands-dirty sense. He’s willing to help us slog through the mire of life for no other reason but love. 

            God wants to walk among us, so He can be our God, and we can be His people, and I think He wants this in the most anthropomorphic way possible. He wants us to walk in His paths and talk with Him in the way that we would talk to our most intimate friends. In the modern world, it is difficult to de-distract ourselves long enough to really walk with God, but that is what He still asks of us. He wants us to be His close, personal, friend, not a passing acquaintance. He wants us to put ourselves in a state where He really can “walk among us” so we can feel His presence, even in the most mundane of moments. 

            We were never slaves in Egypt, but I have sometimes felt like a slave to my problems. I have been a slave to my fears, I have been a slave to hopelessness, I have been a slave to the constant list of things to do that weighs upon us in the modern world. These are problems that eventually pass, but they feel so real when you are in the middle of them. In John 11, when Lazarus died, Jesus came to visit his sisters, Mary and Martha. When he spoke with them, He knew their problems were going to be solved in just a few minutes; He was literally on His way to the tomb to bring Lazarus back to life. Yet He didn’t say to them, “Cheer up, your problems will be over soon.” He wept. He acknowledged that their problem was painfully real, and wept with them. And when we, today, find ourselves enslaved to our temporary problems, however small, we can be assured that He will patiently listen to our pleadings, and then help us to maintain perspective. (D & C 121:1-7)

            In ancient Egypt, slavery involved bowing down under the burden of heavy brick yokes. These were curved sticks that went on a person’s neck and shoulders with ropes on both ends so they could carry containers full of mud bricks to the jobsite. Thus, when the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt, they would have spent much of their time hunched over under their burdens, sometimes working all day without ever walking erect. However, when God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, he said, “I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.” 

            Sometimes we find ourselves bowed down under our burdens today, weighed down by our problems or our to-do list, spending our days with our eyes on the ground, stumbling towards our goals without the confidence to look up. Just as God broke the yoke of the Israelites, so He can relieve us of our burdens, reminding us of our identity as His children, and giving us the confidence to “go upright.” 

When you find yourself weighed down under whatever form of slavery you are in, remember that you are a child of God and that He can relieve you of your burdens and help you walk upright.