Several years ago, there was this movie called "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". Someday I hope my kids will make a movie about some of the great adventures we have had together fishing, hunting for snakes and growing monster zucchini in our garden. They'll call it "Dad's Excruciating Adventures." Like the day I woke my little girl up to go fishing at 4:00 A. M. in the High Uintas. We didn’t catch a single fish. It was cold, stormy and we both got wet and muddy, and the mountain winds made things all the worse. And yes, we both complained. We settled for the disappointment of no fish and cold feet, to bring nothing but runny noses. Our trip to the mountains didn’t go at all as planned, it was all in vain.

We all know that feeling. We go somewhere that we really wanted to go - and when we think that we’ve finally arrived, the trip turns out to be pretty disappointing. The ancient Jewish king, Solomon, knew that feeling. He was the wealthiest man of his generation. He records in Ecclesiastes how he tried every pleasure, every relationship, every conquest he wanted.

He was at the top of the world, but the trip was not all that great. Here's how he describes the view from the top of his mountain - Ecclesiastes 2:17-24. (Paraphrased) "So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me, all vanity. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."

There are plenty of modern Solomons. So many people get what they dream of - the wealth, the power, the position, the possessions, the pleasures - only to find the trip a disappointment, vain and chasing after the wind. Why? Because of what Solomon discovered- he said in Ecclesiastes 3:11, "God hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh." Earth has nothing big enough to fill an eternal hole in your heart. Christ summed it up by asking, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" It is evident that only those things eternal can make a man whole, and make his life not a vanity as King Solomon described.

There are in life basically 2 types of unhappy people as I see it - those who aren't at the top and think that's why they are so unhappy . . . and those who have gotten what they want when they got to the top and found that there's no happiness there. Enter the One the scriptures call the Prince of Peace, the One who dwells at the top of the mountains- Jesus Christ - the One who said on at least 16 occasions, "Come... follow me" and who’s promise is just as sure today as it was when he said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, . . . in me ye might have peace." (see John 14:27 and 16:33)

From adolescence through adulthood, we keep thinking that what we're looking

for is just over that next hill. But no matter how many hills or mountains we’ve climbed, the peace and meaning wasn't there. It’s not until we walk the path to the Garden of Gethsemane where he atoned for our sins to bring us life. It’s not until we climb the hill on Calvary where he died on the cross. It’s not until we seek the Him diligently in all things (D&C 88:63), go up to the tops of the mountains to His temple, (2 Nephi 12:2-3), only then do we really start to experience the eternal relationship with our Savior that we were made for.

Life is a series of disappointing views, up hill climbs, no fish and cold feet, until we give our lives in service to the only One who can give our lives eternal meaning. Every other destination will leave us feeling hollow inside - until we're home - having experienced a view of the eternities.