The Stone in the Road
There is an old story about a king who ordered a massive stone to be placed in the middle of a busy road. He then hid nearby and watched to see what people would do.
Throughout the day, merchants, travelers, and wealthy citizens approached the stone. Many complained. Some blamed the king. Others shook their heads in frustration and simply walked around it.
But no one stopped to move it.
Until finally, a poor farmer came down the road carrying vegetables on his back. When he saw the stone, he set his baskets down and began pushing against it. He strained, dug his heels into the dirt, and struggled with all his strength until he finally rolled the stone out of the way.
Underneath it, he found a small bag of gold and a note from the king that said:
“The obstacle in the path becomes the path.”
That phrase contains one of the deepest truths about mortality.
Most people spend their lives asking:
Why is this happening to me?
Why is life unfair?
Why this delay?
Why this heartbreak?
Why this weakness?
Why this trial?
But the gospel teaches something very different from the mindset of the world.
The world teaches us to avoid discomfort.
God uses discomfort to transform us.
The world teaches us that hardship is proof God has abandoned us.
The scriptures teach that hardship is often evidence that God is shaping us.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said:
“Faith in God includes faith in His timing.”
Sometimes the stone stays in the road longer than we want because the Lord is producing something inside us that could not be developed any other way.
Strength is almost never created in comfort.
Patience is not developed when everything arrives quickly.
Faith is not developed when every prayer is answered immediately.
Forgiveness is not developed when nobody hurts us.
Courage is not developed when there is nothing to fear.
Even the Savior Himself “learned… obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
That scripture alone should change the way we see suffering.
If suffering was part of Christ’s mortal experience, why would we assume we could become like Him without carrying difficult things ourselves?
President taught:
“The Lord loves effort.”
That statement sounds simple, but it changes everything.
Because sometimes we think God only values results.
But often, heaven is watching the effort.
The farmer in the story was rewarded not because the stone was easy to move, but because he was willing to struggle against it when everyone else walked away.
That is often how discipleship works.
The Lord is less interested in how polished we appear and more interested in who we are becoming while pushing against the weight of mortality.
Some people become bitter because of trials.
Others become deeper.
Some become angry.
Others become compassionate.
The same stone that hardens one person can refine another.
The difference is not always the trial itself.
The difference is what the person allows the trial to produce inside them.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once said:
“Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead.”
That is one of the great messages of the gospel:
Your trial is not meaningless.
Your loneliness is not meaningless.
Your unanswered prayers are not meaningless.
Your waiting is not meaningless.
Your weakness is not meaningless.
God wastes nothing.
Even the painful seasons can become sacred if they drive us toward Him.
Very often, the obstacle is not only blocking the road.
It is revealing the road.
It reveals our patience.
Our humility.
Our endurance.
Our faith.
Our willingness to continue walking with God even when we do not understand why the stone is there in the first place.
And sometimes, years later, we look back and realize something astonishing:
The very thing we begged God to remove was the thing He used to shape us into someone stronger, wiser, softer, humbler, and closer to Him.
The obstacle became the path.
And beneath the stone, there was gold.
