Of Huckleberry Finn and Heavenly Rest

You might recall that despite her best efforts, the Widow Douglas’ sister, Miss Watson, was unable to interest Huckleberry Finn in heaven. In fact, you might say that because of her best efforts she inoculated Huck against any interest in heaven. To Miss Watson, and surely the Widow Douglas, too—who doubtless were old enough to have experienced their share of the troubles and turmoil of life—their image of heaven seemed very attractive. “She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.” Huckleberry Finn’s judgment on this depiction of heaven was, “So I didn’t think much of it. . . . I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.” (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chapter 1)

For Miss Watson, heaven was a haven of rest, while for Huck it offered far too much rest. Both were right and wrong together. For the real heaven offers “every good thing” (Moroni 7:20), full of rest and activity, and you do not have to die first to find them.

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Philippians, spoke of “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” as a promise to be awarded in this life (Philippians 4:7). Shipwrecked, beaten, persecuted, and jailed, ever traveling about in his missionary service, where was the peace, where was the rest in Paul’s life?

The prophets have ever promised rest and peace to the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. What are those gifts, though, and when are they given? Rest assured that the peace and rest of Christ do not approach what Huckleberry feared and reach far beyond what Miss Watson could imagine.

The peace and rest of heaven are not some kind of holy lethargy. The modern prophet, Brigham Young, said this about our eternal existence, what he considered life in its fullest meaning:

Life is an accumulation of every property and principle that is calculated to enrich, to ennoble, to enlarge, and to increase, in every particular, the dominion of individual man. . . . It is to pursue that course wherein we shall never, never lose what we shall obtain, but continue to collect, to gather together, to increase, to spread abroad, and extend to an endless duration. Those persons who strive to gain eternal life, gain that which will produce the increase their hearts will be satisfied with. Nothing less than the privilege of increasing eternally, in every sense of the word, can satisfy the immortal spirit. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p.349. 350)

There is no peace and rest in that if you mean a peace and rest that are akin to sleep. But if you are looking for a peace and rest that are full of life and that fill and satisfy the soul, then you are looking for the peace and rest promised by the prophets of Christ in all ages.

This enduring peace and genuine rest come from living a life of integrity, in which all of the parts of one’s life are working together, where there is no war going on in the mind and spirit. The man whose life is an unending series of moral dilemmas, or whose daily walk seems continually out of step, who frequently is torn between one path or another, knows agony and frustration and is familiar with nagging anxiety, living his own personal and daily portion of hell. The ancient Christian disciple, James, declared, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:8) Coming to Christ puts all of that internal warfare to rest. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “if therefore thine eye be single to the glory of God, thy whole body shall be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22 [JST]) Then the Savior warned, “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).

We have to make our decision, to follow Christ or not. Until we do—with full purpose of heart— we will know no meaningful peace and find no lasting rest. Indeed, a man will remain an enemy to God until he turns his heart singly to the Lord, “and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love” (Mosiah 3:19).

When we do that and only when we do that do we begin to live, to be fully alive, to enjoy all that life has for us. As Christ declared, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Those who have obtained that abundant life were referred to by the ancient American prophet, Mormon, as “the peaceable followers of Christ . . . that have obtained a sufficient hope by which they can enter into the rest of the Lord, from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven.” (Moroni 7:3) That is a promise to surpass the joys of any Miss Watson and satisfy the aspirations of the Huck Finn in us all.