Learning from a Little Accident

I witnessed a little miracle today, when I crashed my bike into a pole. I was unhurt. The position of the brake handle was "adjusted," but it still worked. The bike was still ridable, I got home safely, and with the right tools, I was able to reposition the brake handle quickly and easily. What was "damaged" in a moment stayed "damaged," but still functional, for well over an hour, but was fixed in minutes. Kind of like us.

When we sin, it hurts our souls. It "damages" us, you could say. But it doesn't destroy us. We can get back up and keep moving forward, despite the damage. And when we have the right tools and use them correctly, we can have the damage undone.

Another lesson we can learn from this is that having the right tools is important. I don't have an allen wrench as small as the one I needed to fix my bike, so I had to rely on another person to provide me with the tools I needed to get myself out of the mess I had gotten myself into. Similarly, we all rely on Jesus Christ to use our repentance and His Atonement to give us the power we need to become clean and free of sin. We can't do it without Him.

I'm thankful for the little accident I got into this afternoon. I'm thankful for the lessons I've learned from it, and I'm especially grateful that the wreck wasn't any worse. One final lesson is that God can turn almost anything into a good thing, even a small accident like crashing my bike.

Patient with Imperfections

In Elder Valeri V. Cordon's talk, The Language of the Gospel, one particular sentence toward the end of his talk stood out to me: "Just as a mother is compassionate with her little children, our Heavenly Father is patient with our imperfections and mistakes."

This was a good reminder for me, as I need frequent reminders that God will not be overly-critical if and when we struggle in our attempts to keep the commandments. God knows that life is difficult and filled with strong temptations. God knows that we're only human. God asks that we try to keep the commandments, but He doesn't demand that we always succeed. His perfect plan accounts for our shortcomings and weaknesses, and while we must always strive to overcome our weaknesses, there is a backup plan for when we occasionally fail.

Of course, God is far less forgiving of deliberate sin, and forgiveness for any sin, deliberate or not, can only come through repentance, but it's nice to know that God is as merciful as He is just, and that He is more patient than He is perfectionistic. With only one exception, no human has ever been perfect, and I am very grateful that God has learned to be patient with us about that.

A Reason to Study

Yesterday, I read a General Conference talk, not because such talks are generally filled with spiritual insights and light, but because I had to give a message from a Conference talk that evening. When we have to give lessons, we study the lesson material, and are blessed by the act of studying it. That may be part of the reason we're asked to give lessons occasionally: to give us a(nother) reason to study.

There are many reasons to study the Gospel. Doing so can give us the answers to some of life's most important questions and concerns. Gospel study can give us guidance for our personally lives and can help us form a closer connection to the Spirit. Studying the Gospel is the only way to gain the essential knowledge we'll need to learn how to qualify for the greatest of all the gifts of God. Yet, those reasons don't seem to be compelling enough to convince us to study the gospel. At least, not for me.

I am thankful that I occasionally have to teach lessons and that I have to post a daily blog post because these things help me study the gospel far more frequently than I would otherwise make time for. I should study the gospel for more intrinsic reasons. We all should. But, thankfully for those of us who wouldn't study the gospel much otherwise, having to teach the gospel occasionally is one of the ways God gives us some extra incentive to study it.

Bearing Light

The world is full of darkness, but a little bit of light can help drive it away. We draw in light as we study and pray, and that light can help us repel darkness, not only from ourselves, but also from the people we care about. Some people carry less light or face stronger darkness than others. We can help those people by bearing extra light to them, and when we are those people, we can seek help repelling the darkness by seeking out places and people with light. As we all draw in light and bear it to each other, we can all make and find places of refuge where we can, together, fend off the darkness of the world.

Not That We Deserve It

An hour or so ago, I set down a dish with tasty dinner scraps for our unhelpful and often-in-the-way dog, thinking to myself "not that you deserve it." This unrighteous thought made me think about how undeserving we humans are of the blessings we receive.

We, too, are often less-then-helpful, and sometimes our actions get in the way of God's plans for us and for the rest of His children. Yet, God blesses us. God gave us this beautiful earth and these amazing bodies and the moral agency which we frequently misuse, not because we deserved any of them, but because He wants us to be happy and to have the opportunity to gain all the blessings He has.

Those celestial blessings, we do have to earn, but even if we "earn" them, we can't truly say that we deserve them. To qualify for such blessings, we have to be sinless, and we're not. To help us become sinless, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to provide an Atonement for us, at great personal cost to Himself. Through His Atonement, Jesus Christ offers us mercy in place of justice, so God can offer us blessings in the place of the penalties we actually deserve.

I am grateful that God is more generous than I often feel like being, and that He cares far more about mercy than He cares about justice. I'm grateful that He doesn't ask Himself whether or not someone deserves something as often as I do. I am not much like my Heavenly Father, which provides further reasons why I don't deserve the blessings He gives me. I am grateful that He still blesses me, as He blesses His other children, whether we deserve it or not.

Waiting at Home

Whenever I stay out late, as I did tonight, my mom asks me to come into her bedroom as soon as I get home, wake her up, and let her know I'm home. It's very touching for me to know that Mom wants me to let her know that I'm alright, and that I got home safely, even if I have to wake her to do it. It's also touching to know that we have a Father in Heaven who is also anxious that we get home safely (though He's in no hurry for us to come home early). He knows that this life is full of physical and spiritual dangers, so He watches out for us, waiting in heaven to see that we've successfully navigated the trials of life and that we've made it home safely. So, let us be careful as we make our way through life, and try to make sure we become and remain worthy to return to the Celestial Kingdom. Our Parents are waiting for us.

Broken Windows

There's an idea called the Broken Windows Theory. If I recall correctly, it basically means that crimes, like vandalism, are more likely to happen in places where crimes like vandalism have already been committed. It's almost as if people think "Well, that window is already broken, so it's not as much of a shame if someone also broke that other one." I don't know if this mindset really exists in the world of criminal psychology, but I know it exists in me.

There have been times when I, having given in to temptation, say to myself "Well, I already messed things up. I might as well give up for today and try again tomorrow," but that kind of mindset doesn't make any sense. Not for windows, and not for sin.

One window may be broken, but the others are still fine. The broken window can be replaced for the cost of replacing one window. But if more windows get broken, to cost of repairing the building rises. Each broken window adds to the cost of repairs, so each window that we manage not to break matters.

The same goes with sin. One sin can be forgiven for the cost of repenting of that one sin. The more sins we commit, the more sins we need to repent of, and the greater the cost becomes. Each sin we commit increases the cost of repentance (though the value of forgiveness is always great enough to be worth the cost of repentance, FYI), and each sin we manage not to commit helps us keep the cost of repentance down.

Breaking one window, especially by accident, or even by choice, does not justify breaking another. Having one broken window doesn't make the whole building worthless, and breaking more windows can only make things worse. It's better to board up the broken window until it can be replaced and take care not to break any more.

Similarly, committing one sin doesn't mean our entire lives are ruined, and it certainly doesn't give us license to commit more sins. One sin can be repented of with minimal effort, but each sin adds up. Rather than giving up an giving in to temptation because we've already slipped up, we should repent as quickly as we come to ourselves and try not to slip any further. I have broken some windows, both literally and figuratively, but I still have some windows intact, and I intend to keep them that way.