Straight & Strait

Today I was thinking of that path marked Gospel Life.  It glows, warmly beckoning, with that celestial sunny hue.  The path is straight and strait.  It goes one way, no deviation and I'm thinking it dips to the valley and rises to the mountain top and seldom, hardly ever, seemingly non-existent is it ever level, for more than a split second.

Constant monitoring essential.  Constant effort and vigilance. There is no relaxing, meandering, daydreaming and veering off or falling off.  No sitting and resting.  Perpetual motion.  The hymn says hand o'er hand we go along.  So we never lose touch between moving our feet and balancing with our rod grip.

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Hold to the Rod

1. To Nephi, seer of olden time,
   A vision came from God,
   Wherein the holy word sublime
   Was shown an iron rod.
2. (Chorus)
   Hold to the rod, the iron rod;
   'Tis strong, and bright, and true.
   The iron rod is the word of God;
   'Twill safely guide us through.
3. Beneath temptation's pow'r,
   Through mists of darkness we must go,
   In peril ev'ry hour.
4. Our pathway clouded o'er,
   Upon the rod we can rely,
   And heaven's aid implore.
5.  And, hand o'er hand, the rod along,
   Through each succeeding day,
   With earnest prayer and hopeful song,
   We'll still pursue our way.
6.  Afar we see the golden rest
   To which the rod will guide,
   Where, with the angels bright and blest,
   Forever we'll abide.
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 My Oxford dictionary cautions me to not confuse strait with straight and vice versa.  The path is straight ahead.  no detours.  The path may go up and down...Hills and valleys... but it still stays straight directionally.  At the same time it is strait.  Narrow.  Confined.  Not wide at all.  There are all sorts of scriptures that make this topic so interesting to study.

Sometimes I plod on my path.  Other times I move at a more accelerated pace.  The moving forward is the essential element.  Pressing forward.  The scriptures are resplendent with travel directions.  We travel the same path in unison and yet the miracle of doing it individually happens at the same time!

This entire foundational concept warms my heart.