Avatar: The Last Airbender; Eternal Wisdom #1

So a little while ago I was talking with one of my most favorite people and he said something to me to the effect of "God's paths are straight, but He sure takes you for a crazy ride." I thought to myself, they may be straight, but they definitely go up and down. Then the next day, or maybe the day after, I was studying Alma 7, and verses 9, 19 and 20 stuck out to me:  

•  9 But behold, the Spirit hath said this much unto me, saying: Cry unto this people, saying—^aRepent ye, and prepare the way of the Lord, and walk in his paths, which are straight; for behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and the Son of God ^bcometh upon the face of the earth.
• 19 For I perceive that ye are in the paths of righteousness; I perceive that ye are in the path which leads to the kingdom of God; yea, I perceive that ye are making his ^apaths straight.
•  20 I perceive that it has been made known unto you, by the testimony of his word, that he cannot ^awalk in crooked paths; neither doth he vary from that which he hath said; neither hath he a shadow of turning from the right to the left, or from that which is right to that which is wrong; therefore, his course is one eternal round.

And I thought of the Serpent's Pass episode of Avatar (season 2, episode 12). Team Avatar is trying to make their way to Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom. In order to get there, they end up having to take what is called the Serpent's Pass. When looking on the map, the Serpent's Pass looks like a very narrow but very straight strip of land across a sea. But when they reach it, it looks like this:

It's straight all right, but has some altitude diversity issues. On the entrance to the Serpent's Pass, there is a post that says "Abandon Hope." But Team Avatar presses forward, because they don't have any other options.

At one point, the path is submerged in water. Until then, the biggest challenges have been climbing up and down the rock without causing a landslide (easy when you've got the greatest earthbender alive travelling with you). This challenge seems a little more daunting, but between an airbender and a waterbender, travelling through the water in a bubble seems like a simple solution. Until the Serpent swims by. Then they realize what trouble they're in. So now the bubble is burst, and Team Avatar needs to find a way to get across the rest of the water, as well as destroy the Serpent's power.

I won't spoil the action for you, but they get safely across and defeat the Serpent. How does this relate to the scriptures/life? Even though the path was straight, it carried them through ups and downs. And at one point, they had to face the serpent in eye and swallow all fear and doubt to conquer him. Sounds like life, does it not?

Straight paths aren't always easy or dangerless. And when we embark on them, we can never abandon hope, or we won't make it across. God wants us to make it across, He wants us to struggle through the climb, and He wants us to face that Serpent and defeat it. :)