Line upon Line

In April 1972, then Elder Thomas S. Monson shared a story that has been constantly on my mind of late. He said,

One Wednesday I paused before the elegant show window of a prestigious furniture store. That which caught and held my attention was not the beautifully designed sofa nor the comfortable-appearing chair that stood at its side. Neither was it the beautiful chandelier positioned overhead. Rather, my eyes rested upon a small sign that had been placed at the bottom right-hand corner of the window. Its message was brief: “Finishers Wanted.”

The store had need of those persons who possessed the talent and the skill to make ready for final sale the expensive furniture that the firm manufactured and sold. “Finishers Wanted.” The words remained with me as I returned to the pressing activities of the day.

The words have remained with me too, since I heard them a few weeks ago. I have no problem being a starter. The first blush of a new idea is one of the most exciting things in the world to me, but it takes a different kind of diligence to see things through to their end. It is that kind of diligence that I was earnestly seeking this past week when I found myself holding out a pencil as far as my arm would reach, trying to draw a careful line, while 30 or so wasps circled my head.

You see, one of the great symbols of my need to become a finisher is the giant, half-built woodfire pizza oven that has been haunting my backyard for over a year. We had a bit of urgency at the outset. A historic general store in Lindon that my great grandfather co-ran was demolished and we wanted the chance to use some of the brick before it was all cleared away. So determined was I to use this brick for the non-heated parts of this project that I developed carpal tunnel in the process of carefully cleaning and preparing each brick.

We moved forward. We poured a foundation, we built the brick walls (and learned firsthand why bricklaying is an actual expert craft and DIYing it is terrible), we made ready to add a countertop and then we stopped.

There were some elements of making a level countertop on non-standard sized historic bricks that were confusing and a little overwhelming and the children were calling for us and the bills needed to be paid and the floors needed to be mopped and mopped again and life went rushing onward as it is wont to do, and the pizza oven began to blend into the background of the urgent current of all that life demands.
Then my mother told me about this talk over the phone and said those fateful words “Finishers Wanted”.

Within that week, I painted my front door that had had paint swatches on it all summer, I finished a rough cut of the film I’m directing, and I bought all that was necessary to put that countertop on that pizza oven. Taking next steps on so many earnestly waiting projects has shown me just how empowering it is to move forward past your mental stumbling blocks and find the version of you that is bigger than they are.

I was keenly aware, as we set out to make the forms ready for a concrete pour, that we could not get deterred because it is all too easy to just let things go by the wayside. But the cinder block portions that provide the bulk of the structure had become an inviting place for multiple wasps’ nests over the course of our time away from the project. We had sprayed them, waited for a time, and sprayed some more. And now our backerboard blocked the holes where the nests had been, but as the sun began to set, the wasps that had been away from the nest for the day began to come back to a home that they now could not find.

I do not necessarily recommend the path forward that I took, except symbolically. As I sat under the backer board tracing the shapes of the cinderblock columns, an increasing number of wasps circled and swarmed. I knew our time was limited and the task I had to finish was finite to be able to move forward. I pushed forward because I had to, but couldn’t help thinking how much of life we spend swarmed by stray thoughts and distractions and demands that seem so urgent, but are somehow not actually important.

Sometimes we invite the distraction because when we set out on our life’s projects, we encounter the first great difficulty and don’t want to have to find a way through it. It’s easier to only stay for the fun parts and walk away when it’s too hard, but as President Monson said of those who push through, “Their ranks are few, their opportunities many, their contributions great.” And,

From the very beginning to the present time, a fundamental question remains to be answered by each who runs the race of life. Shall I falter or shall I finish? On the answer await the blessings of joy and happiness here in mortality and eternal life in the world to come.

We poured the countertop. We got over that big hurdle, but many more steps remain before we can call it truly finished. We will have to rally and push again and again. Life is the same way.

President Monson said the marks of a finisher are these:

1. The Mark of Vision
2. The Mark of Effort
3. The Mark of Faith
4. The Mark of Virtue
5. The Mark of Courage
6. The Mark of Prayer

I invite you to click through and study what he said about each once, but I want to specifically discuss his thoughts on the first two marks: Vision and Effort.

It has been said that the doorways of history turn on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. We are constantly making small decisions. The outcome determines the success or failure of our lives. That is why it is worthwhile to look ahead, set a course, and at least be partly ready when the moment of decision comes. True finishers have the capacity to visualize their objective.

But he goes on to say that,

Vision without effort is daydreaming, effort without vision is drudgery; but vision, coupled with effort, will obtain the prize.

Needed is the capacity to make the second effort when life’s challenges lay us low.

“Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;
Beginners are many, but enders are few.
Honor, power, place and praise
Will always come to the one who stays.

“Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;
Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it, too;
For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile
Will come life’s victories after a while.”

—Author Unknown

Making that second effort when life’s challenges lay us low is hard. Making the sixtieth effort is even harder, but it is what life demands of us. In C.S. Lewis’ wonderful book, The Screwtape Letters (a correspondence between two devils on how best to tempt humans), Screwtape says that [the Lord] allows a disappointment to occur at the threshold of every human endeavor. “It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life, it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.”

The text says that [the Lord] takes this risk because he has the “curious fantasy” of making us like Him and prepared to come back to live with Him.

Screwtape says,

Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which he sets before them: He leaves them to ‘do it on their own’. And there lies our opportunity. But also remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.

Of course, we know that there are many times that the Lord does carry us through our most painful times, but he won’t let the current of our natural man instincts just effortlessly lead us to what we need to be. I have often lamented that my particular weaknesses seem to be standing exactly in the way of my greatest desires, but if the Lord sent us here to learn to turn to His help to make weak things strong, of course what we want most would lie on the other side of the parts of ourselves we have to overcome. Our great weaknesses will never just lie at the end of a side road, irrelevant to our path and conveniently signposted “There be Dragons”, they will be the stumbling blocks dead ahead which cannot be got over without the outstretched hand of the Master.

The greatest Finisher of all is, of course, Jesus Christ, who in Hebrews 12 is referred to as “the author and finisher of our faith.” He truly showed what it means to endure to the end even when that endurance demands something bitter.

In the increasing suffering of Gethsemane, he called out to his father and said, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” The pain of finishing was just beginning, but he proceeded because he was a finisher and he was there to do his Father’s will.

“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly” I have said those words many times as a narrator of Lamb of God, but not until the very moment of writing this, realized the significance of being in an agony and responding to that with an increase in prayerful devotion, not a decrease.

Like that little boy who fell in love with the Stories of the Odyssey, but then perhaps lost a little of his shine when he grew up and sat down to actually learn Greek; many of us build our testimonies in childhood simplicity. We pray that our dog will come back or that Dad will find the keys and when that prayer is answered, we believe in prayer. But then we get older and prayer becomes more complex, the questions we ask aren’t so simple, nor are their answers.

When we face the inevitable trials of our faith and the wasps circle, when we find ourselves in an agony, will we pray more earnestly? Or will we question whether prayer really is as powerful as we thought and choose to find out by not doing it anymore?

President Monson beautifully stated:

Though Jesus was tempted by the evil one, yet he resisted. Though he was hated, yet he loved. Though he was betrayed, yet he triumphed. Not in a cloud of glory or chariot of fire was Jesus to depart mortality, but with arms outstretched in agony upon a cruel cross. The magnitude of his mission is depicted in the simplicity of his words.

To his Father he prayed, “… the hour is come. … I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” (John 17:1, 4.) “… into thy hands I commend my spirit. …” (Luke 23:46.)

Mortality ended. Immortality began.

Times change, circumstances vary, but the true marks of a finisher remain. Note them well, for they are vital to our success.

I don’t know how many inquiries came from that “Finishers Wanted” sign in the furniture store window all those years ago, but the windows of eternity bear the same message and anxiously await our call and our commitment.