Tipping Point

John 18:6, "As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, the went backward, and fell to the ground."

Every time I have read this account, I have wondered why the men who had come to arrest Jesus were astonished and afraid, and therefore fell to the ground. I tried to compare it to other accounts where men fell to the ground such as Alma the Younger, and Lamoni, and the jailer. I was doing a lot of pondering on the subject and came up with this:

Sometimes the wicked desires that we seek do not lead us to where we originally wanted to go. In the process of seeking those desires there comes a moment where the Lord gives us the opportunity to turn back, one last chance so to speak. It is that pivatol moment when both the Lord and Satan work extra hard on us.

Let me explain. In this account with those who were seeking to arrest Jesus, it was a wicked desire. When they finally reached Christ in the olive grove and He named himself to them, they suddenly realized the magnitude of what they were doing. "It hit them", so to speak, that they were finally at that point. Everything they had worked for up until then had been to arrest Jesus and now they were finally there. I think that, in combination with Christ's boldness led them to be afraid and fall to the Earth. In that moment where they were fallen to the Earth, they had the choice to turn back or to go forward and arrest Jesus. I imagine the thoughts that were going through their heads were something akin to a wrestling within themselve whether they truly believed that Christ was not the Messiah and therefore they were justified in arresting Him. Or maybe some were recalling all the stories and miracles that were done by Christ and thinking that even though they had come to arrest him, that now was the time to stop. I call this a "tipping point".

Let me share a particularly poignant example from my own life. I had a desire in my life to be skinny. I worked extra hard to pursue this desire through exercise, healthy eating, and proper sleep. However, it soon turned into an obsession where my appearrance was all I thought about and I ate less and less and exercised more and more. I was diagnosed with anorexia but that didn't stop me. One night I literally fell to the Earth with fatigue; I was very sick, close to death. As I lay on the floor, I realized that I had a choice to make: to live or die. It was in power to choose. I can testify in those few moments when I tried to decide which I wanted more, I have never felt more torn apart. I literally felt Satan and Heavenly Father fighting for me, for my soul. I was at a tipping point, a crossroads. Satan tried to convince me I was too far gone. Heavenly Father tried to convince me that I was worth saving and that I had to rely on Him or I would be lost. I testify that Heavenly Father was there that day, and gave me that one last "tipping point experience" before I was condemned myself to wickedness.

Although some people feel like they are too far gone or too far lost to turn back and choose a more righteous path, I testify that they are not, and that the Lord will always give them a "tipping point" experience, small or large, that will allow them to choose which side they are on.

President Uchtdorf said this of it being too late to turn back,

"Satan, "the father of all lies" (2 Nephi 2:18), "the father of contention" (3 Nephi 11:29), "the author of all sin" (Helaman 6:30), and the "enemy unto God" (Moroni 7:12), uses the forces of evil to convince us that this concept applies whenever we have sinned. The scriptures call him the "accuser" because he wants us to feel that we are beyond forgiveness (see Revelation 12:10). Satan wants us to think that when we have sinned we have gone past a "point of no return"—that it is too late to change our course. In our beautiful but also troubled world, it is a sad reality that this attitude is the source of great sorrow, grief, and distress to families, marriages, and individual lives.

Satan tries to counterfeit the work of God, and by doing this he may deceive many. To make us lose hope, feel miserable like himself, and believe that we are beyond forgiveness, Satan might even misuse words from the scriptures that emphasize the justice of God, in order to imply that there is no mercy.

My dear brothers and sisters, my dear young friends, when the captain of a long-range jet passes the point of safe return, and the headwinds are too strong or the cruising altitudes too low, he might be forced to divert to an airport other than his planned destination. This is not so in our journey through life back to our heavenly home. Wherever you find yourselves on this journey through life, whatever trials you may face, there is always a point of safe return; there is always hope. You are the captain of your life, and God has prepared a plan to bring you safely back to Him, to your divine destination.

The gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ provides us at all times and at all places with the blessings of repentance and forgiveness. Because of this gift, the opportunity to make a safe return from the disastrous course of sin is available to all of us.

For this I give thanks to our Heavenly Father, and of this I bear testimony with all my heart and soul in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Simple Statement of Principle: There are tipping points in almost every sin and trial when we feel too far. It is at those times that the Lord will try His hardest to help us turn back.

Breanna Plooster