Prepare with Honor

I had a dear friend, an all-American football player.
His team earned the opportunity to play in a New Year's Day bowl game.
Before 100,000 spectators and a large TV audience, his team lost by a huge score.
It turned out that he and the other members of his team had not kept the training rules that their coach had tried to teach them.
They paid a dear price.
They had to live with the consequences of knowing they were not prepared to play the big game; they had to live with the final, very embarrassing score.

Years passed. Two members of this same football team were in my flight-training unit.
One was an exemplary, well-disciplined student--a model pilot who had learned his lesson well from the failure in the bowl game.

However, the other friend had not learned to listen to those with more knowledge and more experience.
When it came time for him to go to the trainer to learn emergency procedures and to precondition his mental and physical responses so that they would be automatic, even instantaneous, this all-American would put his arm around the instructor and say, "Check me off for three hours emergency procedure."
Then, instead of training, he would go to the swimming pool, pistol range, or the golf course.
Later in the training the instructor said to him, "What are you going to do when there is an emergency and you are not prepared?"
His answer, "I am never going to bail out; I am never going to have an emergency."
He never learned the emergency procedures which he should have mastered in preparatory training.

A few months later, on an evening mission, fire erupted in the quiet sky over Texas.
The fire-warning light lit up.
When the plane dropped to 5,000 feet in flames, the young pilot who was with him sad, "Let's get out of here."
And, with centrifugal force pulling against him, the young man who took his training seriously struggled to get out of the airplane and bailed out.
His parachute opened at once.
And he slammed to the ground.
He received serious injuries but survived.

My friend who had not felt the need to train stayed with the airplane and died in the crash.
He paid the price for not having learned the lessons that could have saved his life.

When fire-warning lights come on in our lives, our eternal progress may be blocked, the price we pay for neglecting the warning.
If we ignore the warning lights in our lives, we may not return with honor.

Fire-warning lights of personal nature are activated for many reasons. For example, the use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs should turn on warning lights because, when we choose to use these substances, we become slaves; and our free agency is limited.
We must be prepared with a conditional response to reject them--they are harmful agents--or we will jeopardize our right to have the Spirit guide us and direct us and our ability to return to our Heavenly Father with honor.

-Robert D. Hales -The Aaronic Priesthood: Return with Honor -April 1990 General Conference

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi