God's work throughout history generates marvelous teaching devices: stories.
They are marvelous because they don't just inform. They confirm — they testify of truth, and they deepen our loyalty to it.
So it's good to immerse ourselves in sacred history now and then. When we do, we might experience a kind of time-travel — not only the miracle of visiting someone else's decade or century, but the greater miracle of being momentarily released from decades and centuries altogether.
Of course, that depends on what's going on in the mind of the traveler.
The prophet Jacob contrasted the "carnally minded" with the "spiritually minded" (2 Nephi 9:39). Sacred stories create a wonderful connection between the spiritually anchored people who made them possible and the people of like mind who encounter those stories later on.
Consider our connection with Joseph Smith. Even he could not translate if his mind were anxious and overly occupied with his temporal challenges. David Whitmer reported, "At times … brother Joseph … found he … could not translate. He told us that his mind dwelt too much on earthly things, and various causes would make him incapable of proceeding with the translation. When in this condition he would go out and pray, and when he became sufficiently humble before God, he could then proceed with the translation" (Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:130-131).
Immersed in poverty and pressure, Joseph could easily lose his accustomed spiritual-mindedness, and dwell "too much on earthly things." So we join him in the quest to pray, become "sufficiently humble before God" and qualify for the spirit in our own duties.
Or consider the way some men responded to the "Zion's Camp" recruitment in 1835. They were to drop everything and travel on foot in the heat of a Midwest summer across 900 miles of mostly wild terrain in order to assist their downtrodden fellows in Jackson County, Mo. Many were invited, but few received the invitation with spiritual minds.
They knew the expedition would be difficult. It turned out to be longer and harder and more beset with heartaches than anyone suspected. Travel expenses were not covered. Families were not guaranteed comfort or security while the men were absent. It took spiritually minded loyalty to join Zion's Camp.
Brigham Young was known for that kind of loyalty. At the conclusion of the journey, a skeptic asked, "What have you gained by this journey?" That question was prompted by a carnal mind, a superficial view — a doubting that blessings could flow from that expensive and tragic experience.
But Brigham's mind was anchored to the spiritual. His answer emerged from the instincts of a soul not dominated by worry and earthly preoccupation: "I would not exchange the knowledge I have received this season for the whole of Geauga County; for property and mines of wealth are not to be compared to the worth of knowledge" (Journal of Discourses, 2:10).
Wilford Woodruff was another who embraced the invitation with a spiritual mind. Spiritual instincts told him that Zion's Camp would provide a constant round of privileges: "We gained an experience that we never could have gained in any other way. We had the privilege of beholding the face of the prophet, and we had the privilege of traveling a thousand miles with him, and seeing the workings of the Spirit of God with him" ("Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Wilford Woodruff," 134).
Jacob declared that "to be spiritually minded is life eternal." Sacred stories offer us the taste and nutrients of life eternal. They enable spiritually minded persons to have "an experience they never could have gained in any other way."
Wayne E. Brickey, who lives in Gallatin, Mo., is a retired Church Educational System teacher and curriculum writer and has been a tour guide to Holy Land and Mormon history sites. His novel "Before His Manger: The Long Wait for Christ's First Coming" is serialized in weekly segments Fridays on MormonTimes.com.