On Running Away from Life – Sunday, July 14, 1946
On this question of trying to run away from our troubles and from ourselves: We all, of course, have our share of burdens. Some seem to carry them better than others, but there are times, no doubt, when many of us become discouraged to the point where we wonder if facing life is worth the effort. Perhaps not many of us seriously harbor the idea, and yet the shadow of its suggestion may sometimes cross our thoughts. But when life becomes overbearingly complicated, when problems hang oppressively heavy, or when the courage to face consequences fails us there are some few, unfortunately, who become so despondent, so panic-stricken, so baffled, that they contemplate running away from life itself by removing themselves from the scene of this world’s troubles and tragedies.
There is much that could be said on this serious subject, as preface to which let us ask ourselves these questions: Do we absolve a man of moral blame if he runs away to a far city to avoid facing a responsibility? Is an obligation paid by the deliberate taking of a journey out of this world, any more than it is by the deliberate taking of a far journey in this world? Is God, who gave us life, to have us tell Him when we have lived it long enough? A man can no more restore his own life than he can the life of another, and he who takes what be cannot restore is doing a gravely serious thing, as is also he who undertakes to assume consequences which he can neither understand nor estimate, and the ultimate results of which he has no knowledge. To him who at any time for any cause, contemplates thus seeking to run away from himself, let it be said that men are immortal, that life is purposeful, that justice is certain.
These truths we need never doubt. It is such verities that help men to endure to the end, which end, so-called, is but the beginning of things beyond—and he who would run away from life, in this world or out of it, is but inviting the transfer of his troubles to another time and place of settlement—perchance on less favorable terms than are available here and now. Wisdom and the reason of reality would suggest facing the facts and solving our problems on the best terms that we can make with life, not counting on being able to escape from ourselves by restlessly running up and down the world, nor by removing ourselves from it. In short, there is no such thing as running away from life, and so we had better learn to live it.
“The Spoken word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday,, July 14, 1946, 11:80 a.m. to 12:00 noon, EDST. Copyright 1946.
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July 14, 1946
Broadcast Number 0,882