Leaving a Trail

“Do not go where there the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

There was an ad campaign up at my Metro stop for a long time with that quote. I've been thinking a lot about the choices I have made over the past few years and how many times I have "chosen the path less traveled" (to borrow Frost's metaphor). Or maybe it is just "the path I never thought I would find myself on" - Either way, I find myself being told by people that I am brave. Brave to just pick up and move on. Brave to move to a new city without a job (more than once).

Do I feel brave? No. Sometime I feel rather foolish. Those are crazy things to do. And in many ways they go against my methodical, list making, planning personality. But, I have to admit that things have always worked out when I choose to leave the comfortable path I find myself on and pursue a new course I feel prompted to follow - or when I listen to a prompting to leave my old path without knowing exactly what the new path is.

As I thought about that tonight, I realized I am in good company. Centuries ago a young man named Nephi was directed by his father to go back to the land they had just fled from in order to complete a task - getting the brass plates. These brass plates were important because they held the history of his ancestors and more importantly because they contained the word of God.

Whenever I feel like I have been led by God to do something, a part of me expects it to be easy. Or for all of my actions to be guided. So often that is not the case for me, and it was not the case for Nephi either. He followed his fathers directions to go back. He tried two times with his brothers to get the plates with no success. Did he give up? No. He goes a third time, and this time he says, "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." (1 Nephi 4:6). He succeeds.

What this teaches me right now is that we don't have to see a path in front of us. We can go forward and we can be successful. And when we look back, we may be surprised to see how clear the path behind us is - far to clear to be random or just some detour on an un-traveled or un-planned path.