Today we had a long discussion about how we knew if we made the right choice or if we are leading a life God wants us to live. Some of it was whether it was going on a mission, marrying the right eternal companion or what major you decided to pick. There was something that I noticed about each story that we all had in common. We were all waiting to have the perfect answer and we felt like we weren't receiving it because we weren't perfect or our situation wasn't the ideal. I feel like this is more common than just within the LDS employees at a calling agency. It's a church wide mentality and I noticed that it was a driving force in why a lot of the inactive members I taught on my mission lost their way. No matter what they did, they felt like it was never to be good enough. It makes sense because our doctrine teaches that perfection is in fact a goal and there is always something that we can improve on. In no way am I dissing on this doctrine or disagreeing with it, I think it is a marvelous goal. As a natural reaction though, being human and imperfect, we may all feel as though we have to obtain perfection in order to earn what we want or what God wants for us.
This is something that I struggle with and I think it's something that I taught myself on my mission. You know we are always told that you have to be an obedient missionary in order to see miracles or get a baptism. I always felt that the cancelled baptism from an investigator or a less active not showing up to church was because I wasn't a perfect missionary that transfer. Looking back I realize that it was their agency and I did try my very best to follow all the rules I needed to follow. One thing I failed to learn on my mission was even though I could be 100% perfect in all I do, life will never be be perfect. I mean look at Our Savior Jesus Christ. He did absolutely everything He could. He WAS and IS the only perfect being to ever come to this earth and life for him ended in betrayal. It ended in lashings and being hung on a cross. But because He was obedient AND the Son of God, He also rose in glory the third day, being the first ever to do so.
The point of this post is to tell you that your best is good enough, although not perfect, it is good enough for the Savior and for our Heavenly Father. Some days you won't have the desire to go to church. Some days it will be a struggle for you to read your scriptures because of a busy schedule. Sometimes you will have doubts and your testimony will shake. Sometimes you won't always make the best decisions. AND THAT'S OKAY, because it is part of being human. If we never had those instances, what would be the point of coming to earth? I always thought that if I made one wrong move or if I didn't feel like going to 9 am church, that God would make me pay for it later. I thought that if I didn't make the right decision every time, it threw me off the path that God had for me and I was doomed to live a miserable life and pay for my actions every day for the rest of my life. That is not the nature of God and if you feel like that, it's Satan making you feel that way.
There are 3 things that I have learned to do when I start to feel this way:
1. Learn the acronym CPR. Every return missionary seems to know that when your church attendance, prayer and your habit in reading the scriptures is consistent, you feel good. I would also add temple attendance to endowed members. Focus on the small and simple things. The thing I struggled with is coming home from my mission and not being able to study for 3 or 4 hours in the morning and because of that, I felt I was sinning. I felt guilty. I learned that it's quality not quantity. As a missionary I was able to study for that long because of my schedule but once I started working and going to school, it just wasn't realistic. As long as you feel the spirit and it's quality time with the Lord, whether praying or reading the scriptures, it's enough for Him. You and Him both know what your best is. Figure out what that means to you in your situation. I find that when we do these simple things, other gospel principles like service and missionary experiences, will find its way into our lives. Everything just falls into place.
2. Don't compare your discipleship to another's. Every situation is different and people make different choices. We are all trying our best to follow Jesus Christ and it varies in appearance. It has been a mistake of mine to compare my decisions to those of others. I view myself as "not worthy" of gospel blessings because I don't go to the temple as much as so and so or go to Tuesday devotionals like so and so or do the same things as so and so in order to keep the Sabbath Day holy. My mission president once said that comparison is a sign of pride. You either compare yourself to see if you are better than another or you compare to tear yourself down. Both are destructive and are not God's plan. Focus on your situation and what discipleship looks like for you. Do a self-assessment every once and while to check if you can do anything to improve. We can always do a little better but don't set too many goals tow here you are overwhelmed. If you pray to God to know what to focus on, He will tell you what He sees as important for you.
3. You don't have to be perfect to be worthy. The Savior in the Book of Mormon states, "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men..." (Ether 12:27) Jesus Christ is the one who actually gave us our weaknesses. He knows us perfectly and knows what we want. God isn't going to say "Oh well because you failed to read you scriptures on September 16, 2012, you can't marry Tyrone Mather even though you love him very much" or "Man, you didn't have the perfect attitude when you went to church 10 years ago so you won't get that job you've wanted for forever." That's just not His nature. God loves you and so does Jesus Christ. They love you so much and want you to be happy. They want you to marry your best friend, they want you to get the career of your dreams and they most importantly want you to return to His presence. You do not have to be perfect for them to want those things for you. You do not have to be perfect to be worthy of God's love. He loves you no matter what you do and will help you make things right if you make a decision that does't make you happy.
1 Nephi 17:13 says, "And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led." Before when I read this, I would have thought that God already had a step by step plan for me that would be laid out for me to figure out and if I messed up, I failed the plan. That I had a set decisions that I had to make that God already planned for me to make and if I varied from that plan, He would punish me. Now I see that this "theory" is wrong. What I have learned is that God is with us every step of the way making decisions with us. When we mess up He says, "That's part of the plan too. Rely on my Son Jesus Christ to repent and feel better. Let's move on from here and let's see how you can be happy." He makes the best out of our weaknesses. He makes our mistakes beautiful. He allows us to make our own decisions in order to be happy and we can know that as long as we are keeping the commandments, we are always going to be happy. We are always going to be living a life that He would want us to lead. We will never be perfect in this life but we will always be worthy.
Love it maddi keep it up
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