The Parable of The Garden Hose

All too often, we might feel like the commandments of God are "restricting." Commandments might seem to be more of thou shalt not's in your life and may seem to prohibit your choices. It might also seem that the more and more you do to follow God's commandments, the more prohibitive they seem.

Some of you may have seen a diagram something like this in the past.

The black bars represent limits on our options in life. The basic premise of the image above is that if we fall into unrighteousness and sin, our choices become limited as we continue in sin. If we sin, there are consequences that cannot be circumvented. This is certainly a true principle. 

The second part of the image above is that if we make right decisions, and obey God's commandments, then we will have more and more decisions and opportunities in front of us. This model also has its merits in that if we keep God's commandments, he will bless us with great things in our lives.

There's one major flaw that I can't get around though. If we're keeping God's commandments there are ALWAYS things that we are not going to do. There are things which are just off limits. For instance, I could be keeping God's commandments my entire life, and I still can't expect that at the end of my life, I will be rewarded with the opportunity to "eat, drink and be merry."

I would like to contrast this with something I like a lot better.

In the image above seems  a lot like the way unrighteousness and sin looks in the previous image. As we progress more and more in life, commandments seem to continue to prohibit us from doing things. There is one major difference. The commandments are funneling us away from things are the things that we should not be doing and toward becoming more like Christ.

There is some scriptural background to this that I think is very important to understand:

"3  Yea, Blessed are they whose feet stand upon the land of Zion, who have obeyed my gospel; for they shall receive for their reward the good things of the earth, and it shall bring forth in its strength.
 4  And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above, yea, and with commandments not a few..."
-Doctrine & Covenants 59: 3-4

So, according to the verses above, if I obey gospel principles, I will be rewarded. My reward will be MORE commandments than I had to obey previously. If I am of the opinion that commandments are restricting I'm going to be thinking something along the lines of "WHAT THE HECK!?!? Why am I following these commandments? All I get are more and more restrictions."

Let's not think of commandments as something that God is trying to keep us away from. Think of them as a pointer to make you do the things that He would do. I believe that a major part of obeying commandments is to become more like Christ. If we obey His laws, we will be more like Him.

Enter the Parable of the Garden Hose.

Ok, pretty much everybody has at least seen a garden hose before. If you haven't, here's an image:

So garden hoses have a pretty decent flow of water going through them, but when you don't have any nozzle on them (like in the picture above) they don't really spray water that far. Why?

It's because the diameter of the hose and opening is so large that the velocity of the water going through it is relatively low. High amount of volume going through, low velocity.

Let's say you're trying to spray someone with a garden hose. They're standing a few yards away from you, so what do you do? You jam your thumb over the opening of the hose to make the water flow A LOT faster.

You maintain just about the same amount of volume going through the hose, same flow rate, but your velocity is much higher. The trick is to reduce the size of the opening.

It seems so backwards. You restrict the water more and more (smaller and smaller diameter) and you get the water going faster and faster. Keeping the commandments of God has the same effect.

As we keep commandments, we get more commandments. We get more and more "restricted" meaning that we don't waste our time in as many spiritually trivial or worthless things. But we move faster and faster. 

This is why I like the idea that commandments truly do "restrict" us. They limit us from doing things that are NOT Christlike. Once we have the "gap" or "opening of our garden hose" small enough there will be only one way to be. That one way to be is to be like Christ.

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

                                                                                        -Matthew 7:13-14 

O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.

                                                                       -2 Ne 9:41