The Upward Reach

President Monson, "The Upward Reach" Ensign Nov. 1993
On occasion...I have been asked the question, “Brother Monson, is there one thing I can do to help me pattern my life and live up to my full potential?” As I have searched memory’s corridors for an answer to such a question, I have recalled an experience of a few years ago. A group of friends were trail riding on strong Morgan horses when we came to a clearing which opened on a lush grass meadow with a small, clear stream meandering through it. No mule deer could wish for a better home. However, there was a danger lurking. The wily deer can detect the slightest movement in the surrounding bush; he can hear the crack of a twig and discern the scent of man. He is vulnerable from but one direction—overhead. In a mature tree, hunters had erected a platform high above the enticing spot. Though in many places this is illegal, the hunter can take his prey as it comes to eat and to drink. No twig would break, no movement disturb, no scent reveal the hunter’s whereabouts. Why? The magnificent buck deer, with its highly developed senses to warn of impending danger, does not have the capacity to look directly upward and thus detect his enemy. Man is not so restricted. His greatest safety is found in his ability and his desire to “look to God and live.”
^{(Alma 37:47)}

But chief of all Thy wondrous works,

Supreme of all Thy plan,

Thou hast put an upward reach

Into the heart of man.

(Harry Kemp, “God the Architect,” The World’s Great Religious Poetry, ed. Caroline Miles Hill, (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 211.)