A story is told about Christopher Columbus.  I don’t know whether it’s true or whether it’s apocryphal, but it’s a good story.  Columbus was reportedly at a dinner when someone asked him why he thought he could accomplish something that no one else had been able to do.  Columbus reached over to some hard-boiled eggs, removed one from the bowl, and challenged those present to stand it on end.  Many tried, but no one succeeded in making it balance.  Columbus took the egg, smashed it onto the table, and said, “That’s why I think I can do what no one else has been able to do!”

I did that with my institute students.  Every one of them tried to balance the egg.  The last couple of students tried and tried, just knowing that they were going to be able to balance the egg if they were just more careful than everyone before them had been.  They were shocked when I took the egg, smashed it onto the table, and walked away.  “That’s cheating!” one said

That’s thinking outside the box.  Too many of us circumscribe our thinking by confining our thoughts and ideas to what has already and always been done.

This week I discovered another wonderful example of thinking outside the box.  The feat was performed by Cyrus the Great.  Cyrus was the Persian genius who conquered Babylon.  Babylon was the world power of the time.  It was a vast empire governed by a magnificent city of the same name.  Babylon was a very decadent society.  It was so bad that the word Babylon has become the symbol for wickedness.  The Lord announced through His prophets that Babylon was going to have to be destroyed unless it repented.

Babylon did not repent.  It became more wicked, and gloried in its wickedness and impregnability.  Babylon’s kings had made the city into a place of beauty, splendor, pleasure, and safety—or so they supposed.  Babylon’s hanging gardens were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  They were watered by chain pumps that supplied water from the great Euphrates River which flowed through the city.  Babylon had a seven-story ziggurat, or temple, built to idol gods, reputedly on the site of the Tower of Babel.  The wall that surrounded and protected the city was 56 miles in circumference, 335 feet high, and 85 feet wide.  No invading army could get inside.  Neither could the city be put under siege long enough to starve it into submission through lack of food or water.

Cyrus, a Persian general, employed his army upstream from Babylon digging a channel from the Euphrates River to a large marsh.  Leaving the river bank temporarily intact, he marched the army to Babylon.  The Babylonians closed the seven gates to the city, and didn’t worry much about the army outside.  They continued preparations for the festival that was to be held.  Cyrus had purposely chosen the time of the festival to make his attack.

Cyrus encamped half of his army at the point where the Euphrates River ran under the walls of Babylon.  The other half encamped where the Euphrates exited.  The Euphrates had steep banks, and the city was protected from invasion at those points by huge grates that extended deep into the water.  It was impossible to swim under them.

When all was in readiness, a crew was sent back upstream to the previously dug canal with orders to break through the bank and divert the river into the marsh.  Orders were given to the armies waiting at the walls to watch the depth of the river, and to begin the invasion when the water level dropped.  The armies marched into Babylon through the riverbed when the water of the river was about thigh deep on the men.  The Babylonians were all gathered in the center of the city celebrating their festival, and were unaware that the outer parts of the city had already been taken by the invaders.

This took place in 538 B.C.  The city of Babylon was not destroyed at that time, but that marked the end of the Babylonian Empire.  It passed into the control of the Medes and Persians.  The Babylonians had captured and displaced many people, including the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  With the fall of Babylon, Cyrus decreed that all captive peoples could return to their homelands.  The Jews were thus enabled to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it.

Another general who thought outside the box was my hero in the Book of Mormon, Captain Moroni.  Moroni was always one step ahead of his enemies.  The Lamanites came armed with swords, and cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war.  Moroni’s army was similarly armed; but he also prepared his men with breastplates, arm-shields, head-shields, and thick clothing.  The Lamanites “were exceedingly afraid of the armies of the Nephites because of their armor, notwithstanding their number being so much greater than the Nephites…therefore they departed” without battle.  (Alma 43:18-23).

The next time the Lamanites came up to battle with the Nephites they clothed and armored their men as Moroni had done.  But to their great consternation, they discovered that while they’d been trying to equalize the arms race by preparing themselves with shields, and with breastplates, and very thick garments (Alma 49:6), Moroni had been employing his men in “erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands.”  (Alma 48:8).

To the Lamanites’ “uttermost astonishment, (the Nephites) were prepared for them, in a manner which never had been known among the children of Lehi.”  (Alma 49:8).

I have always greatly admired Moroni.  I have always greatly admired people who are able to think outside the box, and who are able to come up with ideas and solutions to problems that have escaped everyone else.  Once in a while I’m able to do it, but never without the help of the Holy Ghost.  The Holy Ghost is the enabler where thinking outside the box is concerned.

The Holy Ghost was the enabler in all three of the examples that I’ve cited.  There can be no doubt that Moroni was activated and directed by the Holy Ghost, but the interesting thing is that Columbus and Cyrus were, too.

Columbus said, “I have studied all books—cosmographies, histories, chronicles, and philosophies, and other arts, for which our Lord unlocked my mind, sent me upon the sea, and gave me fire for the deed.  Those who heard of my emprise called it foolish, mocked me, and laughed.  But who can doubt but that the Holy Ghost inspired me?”

Over 2000 years before Columbus was born, a prophet of the Lord saw him performing his discovery of America, and confirmed that the Holy Ghost activated him.  Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, said:

And I looked and beheld many nations and kingdoms.

And the angel said unto me:  What beholdest thou?  And I said:  I behold many nations and kingdoms.

And he said unto me:  These are the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles…

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren…

And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.  (1 Nephi 13:1-3, 10, 12).

Nephi didn’t name the man whom he saw, but I’m sure that he could have.  There can be no doubt but that he was referring to Columbus.

Where Cyrus is concerned, another prophet actually referred to him by name 150 years before he was born.  Columbus knew that the Holy Ghost was inspiring him, but Cyrus was probably unaware.

Isaiah wrote:

Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;…

That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers (that phrase suddenly takes on a meaning that I never understood or noticed before, and confirms that Cyrus wasn’t the originator of the idea of drying up the Euphrates);

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name:  I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me:  I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.  (Isaiah 44:24-45:5).

In other words, “Cyrus, I have named thee, and I did it long before you were born.  I have anointed thee to conquer Babylon by drying up the Euphrates River.  I’m doing it so that you can send the Israelites back to Jerusalem after they’ve been taken captive, so that they can rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.  I’m anointing you to do this even though you won’t know me or be one of my followers.”

Prophets don’t think inside the box.  That’s because the Lord doesn’t, either.  The Lord has no constraints where thinking is concerned.  The closer we can align ourselves with the Lord’s Spirit, the better we should become at thinking outside the box.

So the question is, to what purpose have you and I been anointed?  Are we limiting our thinking, and thus our potential?  Are we living such that we are becoming closer to the Holy Spirit and the guidance that is available through that medium?  These are questions that are worth pondering.  Such exercises might occasionally allow us to escape the box.