Parable Of The Unwise Bee

Sometimes our desires to become independent and more self-reliant are so strong that we begin to act negatively toward any kind of authority over us.

 Elder James E. Talmage (an early General Authority of the Church) tells the story of a bee that flew into his office on a warm summer day. After buzzing through the room several times, the bee failed to find the partly opened window through which it had entered.

Elder Talmage understood some things that the bee could not. He knew that if the bee remained trapped in the room, it would die. Hoping to free it, he stepped to the window and opened it wide. 

He tried to guide the bee out the window. But it would not be guided. He tried harder, but the bee became angry and even stung his hand.  The bee persisted in its wild flight and never found the window to its freedom.

 By the following day, it had died.

 (James E. Talmage, “The Parable of the Unwise Bee,” Improvement Era, Nov.1962, p.817.) -------------------------------------------------------------------

Too often in our lives we are like the bee in our adversity.  Adversity may have come because of a wrong decision the bee made, perhaps the wrong decision of another, or perhaps just as part of life to teach the bee a lesson it couldn’t have learned otherwise.  There was, however, someone greater than the bee willing to help him to safety.  But the bee did not have the right perspective it needed and instead rebelled against the help it had.

We too have a choice when trials and tribulations come our way, as they surely will.  We can either follow the gentle hand of the Spirit and learn the lesson we were to learn, or we can rebel and remain in our trial… or even worse, rebel and eventually die a spiritual death.  It is all about maintaining our perspective.  This life, and these trials, although overwhelming they may seem, are just moments in time where the Lord would have us learn.  Learn the lesson and fly out the window!

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