In my latest reading of Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life, I found something I’d never seen before. We often talk about the symbolism of the iron rod, the great and spacious building, the tree, and the fountain of living waters. We tend to skim over the first part, though.

Lehi says in 1 Nephi 8:4 that at the beginning of his dream, Lehi saw a “dark and dreary wilderness.” After some time, Lehi encountered an angelic being who led him on the journey that eventually culminated in the Tree of Life. Note, though, that as Lehi follows the angel, he sees that he is now in a “dark and dreary waste,” through which waste he travelled for many hours in darkness.

We don’t really know if the “wilderness” and the “waste” are meant to be the same thing, or if they represent different places. To my mind, at least, a waste sounds even worse than a wilderness, but either way, it’s safe to say that Lehi’s surroundings didn’t suddenly improve as soon as he began following his heavenly guide.

Traveling through a dark and dreary waste in hours of darkness took its toll on Lehi. Might he have felt a bit slighted? After all, he was faithfully following his angelic messenger, and had done so for hours. Certainly he might have expected something more from his guide than an all-day tour of the local wastelands. Finally he got so frustrated that he cried out the Lord, pleading for relief.

Do we ever find ourselves being impatient with the Lord? Sometimes it seems that at the very moment when we finally entrust ourselves to the Lord, everything collapses around us. We agree to follow the Spirit, and end up in the dump. We decide to do whatever it takes to repent, and end up feeling worse than before. We spend hours trying to befriend a struggling ward member, just to receive the cold shoulder in return. Often our best efforts to follow the Lord seem to be rewarded not with joy, but with sorrow and despair.

At such times, it helps to remember Lehi. In his times of despair, he reached out to the Lord for mercy and received not only relief but also great blessings. In our own moments of trail, when it seems that our righteousness is only rewarded with pain, let us each do the same. Let us have the faith to trust in the Lord when everything seems to be going wrong, knowing that in the end, he will always lead us back to his love.