Be Ye Therefore Perfect

I started my studies this morning looking for what God expects of us. On LDS.org, I searched for the word 'Perfect', hoping to find a talk or article that said that God doesn't expect us to be perfect or "It's impossible to be perfect in this life, so here's what we should do instead: ..." Unfortunately, what I found was the most difficult commandment ever given to us, "Be ye therefore perfect," and several articles stating that perfection, though a distant goal, should be constantly strived for.

One article, Perfection Pending by Elder Russell M. Nelson, pointed out that the word "Perfect" in the commandment "Be ye therefore perfect" may not mean what we think it means. It was translated from the Greek word Teleios, which means "complete." According to Elder Nelson, Teleios is the source of the prefix Tele- which we use every day and which involves distance. Elder Nelson goes on to explain that perfection is a distant goal, on that cannot be fully achieved in mortality.

Elder Nelson also points out that Jesus said "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," during His mortal ministry, but when preaching to the Nephites after His resurrection, He said "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." (Emphasis added.) It would seem that the completeness that Jesus commanded us to (eventually) reach includes the state of being resurrected, and thus this Perfection is impossible to gain in mortality.

Yet, Christ gave that commandment to mortals. I think that, even though we can't fully keep that commandment yet, there is something we can do about it, and that's what Christ expects of us.

There's another notable place in the scriptures in which the concept of perfection is used. In this case, the subject is brought up by Moroni, the Nephite prophet. He said "Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ;"

Interesting... In copying that scripture down, I noticed that both the word "perfected" as in "Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him" and the word "perfect" as in "by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ" have separate footnotes, and those footnotes don't go to the same place. I wonder what that means. Unfortunately, all those footnotes take me to verses from the Pauline Epistles, and I can't wrap my head around them right now.

Overall, the idea of becoming perfect seems to be a long-term goal or a process. The reaching of the goal or completion of the process is impossible in this life, BUT God expects us to begin the process and take steps toward the goal right now, and part of that is, as Moroni said, to come unto Christ and deny ourselves of all ungodliness. Coming unto Christ involves Faith and Humility. Denying ourselves of ungodliness involves Repentance and Self-Mastery.

Self-Mastery itself is a long-term goal, so we shouldn't feel bad if we don't reach it in mortality. We can make progress toward it, and I'm sure we're expected to, but total self-mastery is, if I'm not mistaken, impossible for mortals like us.

Repentance is an ongoing process. As long as we keep making mistakes, we'll keep having things to repent of, and until we achieve total self-mastery and an absolute knowledge of what we should do, we'll continually be making mistakes.

Faith and Humility aren't so much goals or processes as they are qualities that can be had in varying degrees. We can set goals to increase our faith and humility, and increasing our faith and humility is a process, but no matter how much faith and humility we have, I believe we can always have more.

So in conclusion, God has high expectations of us that He wants us to reach eventually. In the meantime, He wants us to get the ball rolling and take steps toward the goals. He knows we won't reach the goals in mortality. We won't even get close. But if we come unto Christ, through faith and repentance (things we actually can do), we can be made perfect in Christ.

As I recall, Stephen E. Robinson wrote some good things about this in his book, Believing Christ. I'll try to find them and report them tomorrow.

Faith in Christ, Doubt in Self

There's a bunch of new Bible videos, produced by the church. I've seen a few of them, but personally, there's another church-made bible video that I like better: Finding Faith in Christ. I've shared it many times on my mission. It's simple, touching, 30 minute video all about Jesus Christ, His teachings, the miracles He performed, including the ultimate miracle, the Atonement and Resurrection. since it's only half an hour long, I had plenty of time to watch it before blogging. When I watched it this morning, I line stuck out to me that I hadn't noticed before. In the movie, Thomas said "Without faith... even seeing is not enough."

I haven't seen much personally. I've helped give Priesthood blessings. I've received Priesthood blessings. But I haven't witnessed any healings that were obviously miraculous. At least, I don't think I have. Maybe they were clearly miraculous, but I lacked the faith to see them as miracles. Without faith, even seeing is not enough.

I wonder what else I don't see. People say that nature is a miracle. Every sunrise is a miracle all on its own. The birth of every new creature, and life itself are both miracles. I think I believe that. Sure, there's plenty of science to explain how it all happens, but I don't have much faith in science either. God makes more sense to me than science, but even though that's true, there's a lot about God and Jesus that I don't fully understand.

Stephen E. Robinson wrote a book called Believing Christ. Not "Believing in Christ," mind you. Believing Christ. I believe in Christ. I believe that He's the son of God, the Creator and Savior of the world. But I'm not sure I believe in Him as my Savior. I'm sure He'd love to save me, and I'm even sure He can, but I'm not sure He will. When it comes to deciding who will be saved and who won't, He leaves that up to us. He lets us choose whether we'll come to Him and be saved or whether we'll remain in our sins. Come to think of it, it's not so much that I don't have faith in Jesus. It's that I don't have faith in me. I don't trust myself to make the right decisions, decisions that I'll need to make in order to be saved.

But that leads me back to a lack of faith in God. Faith in God includes faith in His methods. He knows whether He can trust us, and if He trusts us to make decisions, He must have faith that we can make the right decisions. And sure, theoretically, I can make the right decisions. I'm just not sure that I will. It's like asking a kid whether he wants to go to church or stay home and play video games. He can make the better choice, but he probably won't.

That's where I feel I am. In order to be saved, we have to give up our sins, and I'm not sure I have the will-power to do that. I can make baby steps in the right direction. I have that much faith in myself. But I frequently backslide, too. Does the backsliding counteract the baby steps? Is it one step forward, two steps back, or two steps forward, one step back? Or is the forward steps to back steps ratio one to one? Am I making any real progress toward being saved?

Why am I talking about this in such a public place? Why don't I Command-A, Delete, and write something else? Why am I so sure that I'm going to publish this blog post anyway, with all my naked insecurities, never knowing who all may read it? Is it that I just don't care who reads it? Is it that somewhere in the back of my mind, I don't think anyone will read it, even though I personally know at least two people who will? Maybe it's that I don't think many people will read this blog post, and I trust the few people who will. Some people would worry about appearing weak, but heck, we're ALL weak. And either we can hide our weaknesses from each other until everyone believes that they're the only weak one in the world, or we can share our weaknesses and try to strengthen each other.

I have considered making a new blog. An anonymous blog, where I can share in greater detail exactly what I struggle with and why I feel so weak so frequently. Perhaps someone with the same problem will stumble upon the blog and I can help them. Or I can keep blogging here, try to stay vague, and hopefully help the people I know (and whoever else happens upon this blog) in some small, non-specific way. That's a good method, though, isn't it? If I stay vague, everyone who reads this can adapt it to themselves, and apply it to their own lives, even if their problems are very different than mine. Which way would do the most good?

But getting back to the point, if I trust God, I have to trust His judgement, even when He says that He can trust me. I'm sure I said that before. Maybe even yesterday. Or maybe I can trust Him enough to get over the belief that He can't trust me any more than I can trust myself, and still trust Him enough to believe that He can make things right anyway. Maybe He has a plan B that'll work as long as I keep trying to be righteous, regardless of whether I ultimately succeed or not. That way, I can still try to rid myself of sin, but I won't have to feel hopeless just because I fail. That sounds pretty good to me. But merely sounding good doesn't make something true.

I'll have to do some more research on this subject. I'll get back to you tomorrow.

The Ladder of St. Augustine

In my studies this morning, I stumbled upon a quote from The Ladder of St. Augustine, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I'm certain that the quote will sound familiar to you as soon as you've read it:

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

This stanza shares some wise counsel regarding persistence and diligence, but that's not the only gem of wisdom I found when I read the complete text. Here are my highlights:

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

This, the first stanza of the poem, takes some creative license with where one is allowed to place commas and separations between lines. I assure you that the rest of the poem is much easier to read. Stated simply, (and badly paraphrased,) this stanza says:

Saint Augustine, you have told us that if we tread beneath our feet all our past deeds of shame, we can frame a ladder out of our vices.

Much less poetic, but a bit easier to understand. It means (if my interpretation is worth anything) that if we put our past behind us, if we change ourselves, if we overcome our vices, that struggle and triumph will allow us to rise.

The mighty pyramids of stone,
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed with pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

Mountains of often seen as great obstacles that are difficult to overcome, but offer great heights to those that meet the challenge. I never would have thought to include pyramids in that analogy, but Longfellow did. He also shared a new perspective on the mountains in the 'Obstacles with Opportunity' analogy, that once we've climbed a bit and gained a little perspective, we realize that the mountains are covered in natural pathways, that even though the mountains had seemed to be barriers, they were actually meant to be climbed. The pyramids, too, "when nearer seen, and better known," are covered in stairs that are easy enough to climb, if you take them step by step. But the last two stanzas are my favorite:

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern - unseen before -
A path to higher destinies,

Nor doom the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.

In this poem, Longfellow proves wiser than many. He shows that he understands that though the Past is unchangeable and filled with faults, flaws, and failures that we would love to change, even a pile of problems gives us something we can build on. If, out of the ashes of our mistakes, we learn wisdom, and if we use that wisdom to gain great heights, then it can be said that, in the long run, those challenges that we struggle with turn out to be good for us.

I, personally, hate my faults and weaknesses. I don't think they're making me stronger or better. They're making me weaker. Perhaps I could become stronger or wiser by overcoming them. But, standing at the bottom of the mountain, that seems like an impossible task. I'm sure St. Augustine and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were higher up their mountains than I am up mine now when they said what I just quoted. Their perspective is better than mine.

Still, I have the perspective of faith. I've been told that challenges produce champions, that obstacles are opportunities, and that trials can result in triumphs, and I believe that it's true for other people. But is it true for me? Can my challenges make me a champion? Are my obstacles really opportunities? Can I face my trials and come out triumphant, like so many others have done? Can I be as strong and as good as I encourage my readers to be? Or am I a failure and a hypocrite, whose only real success in life is encouraging others to be better than me?

What I still need to recognize (among so many other things) is that one's perspective goes hand-in-hand with their attitude, which, as a wrote a few days ago, is of vital importance. Life by the yard is hard, but by the inch is a cinch. I can't imagine climbing up a flight of stairs as tall as a pyramid or the Empire State Building, but I know I could climb one flight of stairs with ease. Why not start with that? And once I've climbed one flight of stairs, I'll go climb another, and then another. It'll add up over time. As long as I keep moving forward and try not to regress, I may eventually find, to my great surprise, that I've climbed higher than I ever thought I could, higher than I now think that I'll ever be able to climb. It all starts with just a couple of steps. I can do that much. And if I can keep that perspective, perhaps I can do more than I currently think I can.

Commandments at the Beach

I'm not sure what to write this time. The videos I watched this morning, Stay Within the Lines and We Are All Enlisted, I watched mostly for my own benefit. But I'll ramble on for a while, and you can judge whether or not my ramblings can help you.

Elder Holland spoke of lines of worthiness in which we must stay. In typing that, I felt a little bit of what some of you may feel in reading it: restriction. I felt like I was describing a fenced field which we are not allowed to leave. What comfort me are the many other analogies of commandments that I've heard over the years. One of those analogies admit that, in a way, commandments are like fences.

In San Francisco, just to the West of the North side of the bridge, there's a beach. The name of this beach is Rodeo Beach. (I've always heard it pronounced Row DAY Oh rather than Row DEE Oh, but I'm not sure it matters.) Rodeo is mostly a pebbly beach with some kind of estuary or saltwater lake behind it. On either side of the beach, there are cliffs with trails leading up and around, offering wonderful views of the ocean and the surrounding nature. Most of those trails, when they get near to the cliff, have fences.

Commandments are like those fences. They seem to be holding us back, but they're really not. It's easy enough to cross those fences, if you want to, just as it's easy to break the commandments (in fact, it's sometimes hard to KEEP the commandments). But the fences, and the commandments, aren't really there to restrict us, they're there to keep us safe. They're there to keep us from falling off the cliff by accident. They're there to force us to make a choice. Will we stay on the Lord's side, the safe side, or will we cross over the line and take our chances with our own judgement?

Another analogy. Rodeo Beach doesn't have this problem, but some beaches do: whirlpools. A sign reads "Danger! Whirlpool. No Swimming." But this sign is not a fence. We're still free to do whatever we want, unimpeded. We can walk up and down the beach. We can gather seashells, make a sand castle, feed the seagulls. We can even go swimming, if we want. There's no one to stop us. But if we choose to swim, we may get caught in a whirlpool, and once we're stuck in there, we'll have a hard time getting out. I stole this analogy from the Gospel Principles manual.

Commandments are like the No Swimming sign. God can warn us that there are dangerous things around, and He can tell us what to do to avoid them, but the choice is still ours to make. Do we want to have thrilling fun, and risk the consequences, or do we want to have the kind of fun that keeps us safe? I haven't gone swimming at a beach in years, but I still like going. I especially enjoy hiking along the cliff trails, but I stay on the safe side of the fences.

The world is full of choices, but some of the choices we can make carry dangerous, painful consequences. God would rather that we didn't have to suffer those consequences, so He'd rather that we all made safer choices, so He tells us about the cliffs and the whirlpools and He warns us not to go near them, not because He wants to control us, but because He wants to keep us safe.

In the past, I have ignored a No Swimming sign and I have gotten myself stuck in a whirlpool, so to speak, and I can tell you from personal experience that you don't want to go there. It's better to keep the commandments. It's better to make sure you stay safe.

Examples of Righteousness

This morning I read President Monson's April 2008 talk, Examples of Righteousness. He talked about how young men in the church look up to their Priesthood leaders, and how those leaders should set a good example to the young men they influence. He also talked about parents being good examples to their children. He quoted Brigham Young: “We should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. We should set them an example that we wish them to imitate.” I don't have children yet, but regardless of that, I should still be trying to be the kind of man that I want my future children to be. I have a long way to go.

As I thought about inspiring examples, I thought about Paladins. The image of a Paladin helps inspire me to be more righteous and faithful, courageous and selfless. As I've read about Paladins, I've learned that being an example of righteousness is part of their job (according to the author, Elizabeth Moon). In the fantasy world in which they live, they are meant to inspire others. I'm confident that, as a very small part in God's eternal plan, they were meant to inspire me. Pillars of truth and strength, powerful servants of the Lord, standing boldly against sin and evil wherever it is found. Fictional Paladins were meant to be an example to me, so that if I succeed in following their example, I can someday be an example to others.

As I wrote about in my last post, our actions can have a ripple effect that spreads over areas too wide for us to guess. Elizabeth Moon could never have guessed that I would eventually read The Deed of Paksenarion, and be inspired to be a more faithful soldier of God. She could never have known that, emboldened by her novel, I would become a better person and then go on to influence others. It is literally impossible for her to estimate how much good she did by writing such an epic novel. In a similar manner, I must admit that it's possible that, decades from now, someone may stumble upon this blog, and in some way become a better person because of it. I highly doubt that that will ever happen, through the sheer improbability of it, but like Elizabeth Moon, I can never know for sure.

And neither can you. Sometime today, you're going to do something that will affect someone more than you know. How do I know that? Because things like that happen all the time. Perhaps you hold the elevator door open for someone, and it makes their whole morning seem brighter. Or even if the person for whom you held the door open wasn't remarkably affected, perhaps someone down the hall saw your act of kindness and decided to follow suit. The point is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people on which we have some small influence occasionally, and most of that influence goes beyond the range of our perception. As we do good, we inspire others to do good, who in turn inspire others, and so on. So when we do good, we have no idea how much good we are doing.

The same, unfortunately, is true in reverse. When we do things that are wrong, we accidentally lead others down the same path, whether we know it or not. That's part of the reason (along with the concern for our own personal salvation), we should be careful that we're doing good as much as we can. Paladins try to do good always, and that's part of what inspires me.

But, of course, the greatest example of personal righteousness is the Savior, the one person who, while living on the Earth, knew exactly how much good He was doing. Doing good and influencing others for good were His purpose in life. He knew that He was meant to be an example to those He taught, and that they would be an example to those they taught. He told them "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." - Matthew 5: 14-16

We may not know how much influence we have on others, but it's important for us to remember that that influence exists. We set an example for others to follow, so it's important that we follow President Monson's counsel and make sure we're being examples of righteousness. I know we can't be examples of righteousness all the time. We all fail occasionally. But those are the times when we can be examples of repentance, and then examples of righteousness. I hope that someday, for someone, I will have the courage to share my example of repentance, but for now, I'll use whatever influence I have, whatever influence this blog gives me, to try to be an example of righteousness, of learning and self-reflection, of taking the time to think about things that matter.

I'm sure this blog post has influenced you. I hope it was an influence for good. If it was, pay it forward. You never know how much good it'll do.

How To Change A Life

The little things can make a big difference. A 5-minute video and a few paragraphs of reflection, it doesn't seem like much, but it lifted my spirits a little just now, and a good attitude can make a big difference.

It works for good things and bad things. A compliment can go a long way in affecting someone else's mood, but so can an insult. A short phrase, mentioned in passing, could change someone's outlook on the day, and (though I may be stretching this) that could change their life. I once had an idea for a movie where one person, for no real reason, says or does something mean to a random stranger. That throws the random stranger into a bad mood, and he says or does something even more mean to someone else. The process continues until someone does something tragic, like a shooting, very negatively affecting the person that started the cycle. The cycle-starter feels miserable. Then the scene transitions back to where the first person does something mean to the stranger, only this time, he does something nice instead. This leads us into a montage where everyone in the movie, when they would have done something mean, they do something nice instead, bringing us back to the last person in the cycle, the shooter, who throws his guns into the river instead. The shooting never happened.

Now, Hollywood would probably end the movie before the What-If-Everyone-Had-Been-Nice montage, but it's important to me that we remember that for every negative, there's a positive. If kicking someone when they're down could really hurt them, then lifting them when their down could really help them. That's my logic, anyway.

A short, 5-minute video and a few paragraphs of self-reflection don't seem like they could change my day, let alone my life, but they can change my attitude for a few hours, they can make my day go better, they can help me feel the Spirit once or twice before I start my day. And that can really change my life.

"Blog."

In a moment of frustration, I cried to God, asking "What do you want me to do?" The answer I got back was "Blog."

I remember a time when I would watch, listen to, and read General Conference talks, and blog about what I learned. I felt the spirit so strongly at those times. I truly felt that God was speaking to me, and perhaps also to others through me. I've been struggling a bit lately. I feel like I need more guidance, more strength, more help from God. God knows the best way to help me, and He's asked me to blog.

I went to LDS.org and watched some Mormon Messages videos. I had forgotten how uplifting and inspiring those are. One in particular, David A. Bednar's Discerning Light reminded me that God doesn't like to make Himself obvious. He only uses His power when He has to, and even then, He only uses as much as He needs, no more. He doesn't shake the Earth for us when He knows we can feel His influence through the Still Small Voice. I sometimes doubt whether I have all the help that I need to do what God asks me to do. I frequently ask for miracles, claiming that anything short of a miracle wouldn't be enough to help me. But God must know better than I do. He's known me since before I was born. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows how much help I need, even if I don't. I need to trust Him, even when He says that He can trust me. He seems to think that I don't need a miraculous amount of help, that a few promptings of the Holy Spirit would be enough. I sure hope He's right.