Psalm 119:19
I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
One of the realizations we come to regularly in our lives is that this world we live in now is not our home. It’s a wonderful place. It’s a beautiful place. It’s God’s creation. And it is part of His plan for our salvation. But it is not our home. We had a veil drawn across our minds before we came here, and we have the promise that after this life is over, we will return to that place that really is our home. We will both remember what we knew before we came into mortality and take with us many wonderful lessons that we learned while here. Nevertheless, while we are here in a telestial world, it can sometimes be a lonely place. We can feel like strangers here.
Jacob, born to Lehi and Sariah in the wilderness of their affliction, had a difficult life by any standard and felt something of this loneliness of which we speak. Near the end of his life, he said, “The time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days.”178
Obviously not all of our days are spent in mourning and not all of our days are lonely. Indeed we pray that there will always be bright days and wonderful fellowship among the Saints of God and within the household of faith. But, still, this world is not our home and we are not to live as if we were going to stay here. Thus the commandments of God. Little wonder that the Psalmist cries, “Hide not thy commandments from me.” Obeying them is the only way we can make it through this sometimes hostile world.
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