Becoming Like God - With Great Power...

It seems that other Christians don't like Mormons very much. In fact, some of them insist that we aren't really Christian, because apparently our Jesus is different from their Jesus (somehow). Other problems people have with our religion include the fact that we "added" to the Bible after it was complete. (I'm not going to argue whether the Bible was "complete" at the time Revelations was written - that's for the historians. However, I would argue that the Book of Mormon is a completely separate book. But I digress.)

What I actually want to write about is a controversial belief that we have about God Himself and the destiny of mankind.

"As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be." -Lorenzo Snow (Really? I thought Joseph Smith had said it.)

I've never seen the Godmakers, which I'm told is some kind of anti-Mormon video, but just by the title, I can kinda guess which part of our theology they have a problem with. The idea is that, as sons and daughters of God, we have the potential to grow to become much like Him. That's the purpose of our being here on Earth - to gain the experience necessary to learn to be like Him. Mostly, it means learning self-control.

You see, God is powerful. He has created the world, and I'm pretty sure He could destroy it just as easily, if not more easily. Have you ever experienced such frustration that you used more force than was wise, like violently shaking on the handle of a drawer that was stuck closed? God can't afford to do that. If He ever lost His cool, He'd probably kill someone (possibly everyone) by accident. Everyone who knows and loves God knows that that's never going to happen, but I believe that's because God has learned to control Himself. His wisdom has more influence over what He does than His anger. I'm sure he must have been tempted once or twice to throw our planet into the sun, frustrated at how consistently we humans screw things up, but He never has and He never will because He has an incredible amount of self-control.

For this blog post, I wanted to share a clip from Spider-Man (2002), but I couldn't find one I really liked, so I'll just type up the oft-repeated quote, "With great power comes great responsibility." -Peter Parker's Uncle, Ben.

God has great power. If He is ever going to trust us with even a small portion of that power, we first need to prove that we can handle the responsibility. So, He put us on Earth and gave us a little bit of power. The power to build, to destroy, to create life, to end life, to think, to speak, and to act, and so on. I think that much of the reason He gave us this power and gave us free reign over our lives is simply to prove what we would do with it. Would we use it wisely? Would we misuse it? Would we even use it at all?

I'm reminded of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30, where a certain man gave some talents to three of his servants, and when he returned, to those who used the talents wisely, he said "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." (Matthew 25: 21, Emphasis Added)

I believe that God put us on Earth and gave us a few things partly to prove whether we could be trusted  to be made "ruler[s] over many things." Could we handle the amount of responsibility that would come with that much power? I, sadly, strongly identify with the servant to whom was given only one talent, and buried it rather than investing it. I don't feel like I've been given a lot in terms of talents and skills, but I haven't really been using the talents and skills I've been given. If I were given ultimate power right now, I'd probably sit on my thumbs for fear of doing something wrong.

We need to learn to control the abilities we've been given, and to use them for good, then God can trust us with even more ability, until He can ultimately entrust us with the greatest power imaginable, that of being like Him. It's a heavy responsibility - one that I really don't feel ready for yet and am not sure I ever will be, and one that I certainly don't want until I am ready. I don't want to be a god. At least, not any time soon. Fortunately, there's a dual-meaning to the term "Eternal Progression." First that it is "progression" to become like God, who is "Eternal," and second, that we've got an eternity to work on it.