They Were Fed, But Not Nourished
“Years ago,
President Boyd K. Packer told of a herd of deer that, because of heavy
snowfall, was trapped outside its natural habitat and faced possible
starvation. Some well-meaning people, in an effort to save the deer, dumped
truckloads of hay around the area—it wasn’t what deer would normally eat, but
they hoped it would at least get the deer through the winter. Sadly, most of
the deer were later found dead. They had eaten the hay, but it did not nourish
them, and they starved to death with their stomachs full.
Many of the messages that bombard us in the
information age are the spiritual equivalent of feeding hay to deer—we can eat
it all day long, but it will not nourish us.
Where do we find true spiritual nourishment? Most
often, it is not trending on social media. We find it when we “press [our] way
forward” on the covenant path, “continually holding fast to the rod of iron,”
and partake of the fruit of the tree of life. This means that we
must deliberately take time each day to disconnect from the world and connect
with heaven.
In his dream, Lehi saw people who partook of the
fruit but then abandoned it because of the influence of the great and spacious
building, the pride of the world. It is possible for
young people to be raised in a Latter-day Saint home, attend all the right
Church meetings and classes, even participate in ordinances in the temple, and
then walk away “into forbidden paths and [become] lost.” Why does this happen?
In many cases it is because, while they may have been going through the motions
of spirituality, they were not truly converted. They were fed but not
nourished.” (Holland, 2019)
It's like feasting on spiritual 'twinkies' rather
than meat and vegetables. They may have been given 'quantity', but not
'quality' of spiritual opportunities.
