On Personal Roadblocks

So often when we feel that we have failed, it is because we are measuring our success by worldly standards.

My husband’s father, Dr. A. Harold Goodman, made this profound observation:

“Men have such sophisticated tools for measuring the insignificant, and such crude tools for measuring the truly significant.”

When everything seems to be going wrong, everyone else appears to be succeeding while you fail, and you just can’t seem to find your niche, consider the possibility that perhaps the Lord has something different in mind for you. As you watch all your friends achieve their goals and win the very honors you were striving for, remember that you don’t have to be the best—just your best. And if you are doing all that you possibly can and the doors still aren’t opening, maybe the Lord is gently leading you down the path you covenanted with Him to follow before you came here, one you can’t see right now. Remember that He has a specific mission that is uniquely yours.

C. S. Lewis, in his book "Mere Christianity," gives us a thought-provoking analogy:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.”

So often the roadblocks looming in our path turn out to be the very guideposts we have been praying for to gently steer us through the gateway to our real mission in life.

Home / For latter-day Saints