The Moth to the Flame

Dear Friends and Neighbors:            

            Sometimes life has its share of heat!  Do you ever feel spurned, or churned, or burned?  Abinadi certainly did.  Do you ever have “your feet held to the fire?” 

            Sometimes we feel ourselves scorched, torched, scalded and scathed by life’s flames.  Some, like King Noah have even been roasted and raked, toasted and baked.  We all will feel the results of our good or poor decisions.    Having and using our agency can put us into some pretty hot pressure-cooker situations!  I think all of us will have to stand the heat of the fiery furnace at some time in our lives.  How will you and I finally turn out in the final baking!  I hope I can stand in the heat and withstand the flames in the furnace of affliction and temptation of these last days.  See Sister Taylor’s story from the Philippines. 

Love,

George & Debbie

GT & DT

The Moth to the Flame

Debra S. Taylor

June 10, 2-12

Elder Jovencio A. Guanzon, member of the Eighth Quorum of the Seventy, spoke to the missionaries in our weekly MTC Devotional recently.  He gave a wonderful message about obedience, the first law of heaven, using the famous story written by Jose P. Rizal, the Philippines national hero, as told by his mother:    

"One night, all the family, except my mother and myself, went to bed early. * * * My mother began to read me the fable of the young moth and the old one. She translated it from Spanish into Tagalog a little at a time.

"My attention increased from the first sentence. I looked toward the light and fixed my  gaze on the moths which were circling around it. The story could not have been better timed. My mother repeated the warning of the old moth. She dwelt upon it and directed it to me. I heard her, but it is a curious thing that the light seemed to me each time more beautiful, the flame more attentive. I really envied the fortune of the insects. They frolicked so joyously in the enchanting splendor that the ones which had fallen and been drowned in the oil did not cause me any dread.

"My mother kept on reading and I listened breathlessly. The fate of the two insects interested me greatly. The flame rolled its golden tongue to one side and a moth, which this movement had singed, fell into the oil, fluttered for a time and then became quiet. That became for me a great event. A curious change came over me which I have always noticed in myself whenever anything has stirred my feelings. The flame and the moth seemed to go farther away, and my mother's voice sounded strange and uncanny. I did not notice when she ended the fable. All my attention was fixed on the fate of the insect. I watched it with my whole soul. It had died a martyr to its illusions. * * *

"It was a long time before I fell asleep. The story revealed to me things until then unknown. Moths no longer were, for me, insignificant insects. Moths talked; they knew how to warn. They advised, just like my mother. The light seemed to me more beautiful, more dazzling, and more attractive. I now knew why the moths circled the flame." (Rizal)

I have heard this story many times.   But, its significance to me personally has become  vivid and brightly brilliant as I look around and see the so called “beautiful, dazzling, and attractive lights of the world.”  “All that glitters is not gold.”  Barbra McConochie’s plea comes to my mind in her beautiful child’s hymn:

“Keep the commandments; Keep the commandments!

In this there is safety; in this there is peace.

He will send blessings…Keep the commandments!

In this there is safety and peace.”