This week I went to Alaska with my brother to visit a cousin of ours that lives up there. It was a fun and relaxing week of fishing, driving around, and playing video games.

At one point we decided to do this 6-mile hike to a cool fishing hole at the end of a lake. It’s bear territory up there, so we made sure to take a couple of guns and some bear spray.

As we started, I was a little nervous about seeing a bear. It would get worse when my cousin would stop and look through the trees or listen as if he’d heard or seen one. I kept being nervous about bears until I realized something that also taught me a really important lesson.

At one point while walking at the back, I imagined what would happen if there was a bear behind us. I kept looking over my shoulder because my cousin told me to watch out behind just in case. I wondered what I’d do if I actually saw a bear behind us, then realized if I did, my cousin would probably run up and get between it and me.

He’s hunted and killed bears before, so he knows how to deal with them much better than my brother and I do. He is experienced and stronger than me, and I knew that I could trust him to protect me because of that.

My cousin could stand between me and the danger of a bear because he’s done the work necessary to be able to be okay against bears.

The lesson I learned was when I thought about how this is like Christ, how He stands between us and the dangers of sin and hell. He prepared Himself before this life and when He performed His atonement while here on earth, so He has everything required to defend against a danger of that magnitude.

He’s been through all that I have, so that also qualifies Him to defend against anything that can threaten me.

Christ is more powerful than everything else. He loves us and wants to stand in between us and danger and take care of it for us.

We didn’t end up seeing any bears on our hike, but we had a lot of fun. And this lesson that my fear of bears taught me will probably stick with me for the rest of my life.