Honesty Pt3: The Source and Our Duty

Pt3

                I believe that when we have this personal honesty we should not keep it secret. After all, we have felt the tremendous burden of perfection lifted from our shoulders so wouldn’t we try to alleviate someone else pain? If I’m not pretending to myself that I’m perfect, why pretend to others? We can all tell when some is solidly grounded and just seems to get it. We naturally gravitate to those types of people. As we’re honest about being imperfect, we liberate others to do the same. The insecure don’t need their pride inflated, they need to realize that its totally natural to be imperfect and that everyone else is to. My hope would be to put their mind at ease and let them feel better about themselves because there is no reason to cry about spilled milk in the middle of the earthquake of mortality.

                So I’ve talked about this personal honesty and all the great things about it and only alluded to the ‘how’.  As I look back I can see what the first domino was that fell to cause this paradigm shift in perspective; God pushed over the Confidence in Christ domino. Jesus came and did what he did because He and God foresaw and realized that not a single one of us would make it through the Mortal experience unscathed. We would all succumb to sin and shatter our chances to return on our own efforts. Their unfailing charity for us imperfect things is what moved them to act for us. Unlike us, Jesus could go through the Mortal experience and leave unscathed and would do this vicariously for the rest of us. He cleared the path. No matter how dirty we got in mortality, he made it so we could choose to come back.

                And that’s the heart of it-I choose to have Confidence in Christ. I choose to believe that he really can make my scarlet sins into white snow drifts. My returning back to heaven is not dependent on my abilities to run through a mud pit without getting muddy, but my willingness to choose Christ and believe that he can continually clean me up. He did what He did to allow imperfect people into Heaven to become truly perfect there.

                Perfection will come to those who want it. But does this mean that I can, as I said, roll around in the mud of my imperfection and revel in it? H no! That is not what a god would do. If we did live life like this we would be terribly uncomfortable in the presence of God. As Moroni says in Mormon 9:4, ‘Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell.’

 We are to develop the attitude of a god by striving for perfection all our lives even when it’s unobtainable. However paradoxical that is doesn’t matter, it’s true. Jesus and the Atonement mean that we don’t have to be discouraged when we fail; we simply have to pick ourselves back up and try again. We have to try to keep the commandments to the best of our abilities but not for the sake of getting yourself to heaven or trying to measure up to the Celestial ‘you must be this righteous to be here’ sign. Keeping commandments is for the sake of demonstrating Confidence in the One who asks us to follow him and he’ll clean us up and get us there. So its all on his shoulders not mine. If I choose Christ and give him my good efforts at perfection, then I’m assured salvation. Sweet!

Thus we can be fully honest with ourselves and accept that we just aren’t perfect. Oh well- it’s just not in the game plan right now. I don’t even have to pretend to be perfect to have divine acceptance either. Man that feels good. I don’t have to hate others for how I perceive that they’re better than me either because we’re all in the same boat. Hot dang! I love a quote by Elder Nelson, ‘Be patient with yourself.  Perfection comes not in this life but in the next life. Don’t demand things that are unreasonable, but demand of yourself improvement. As you let the Lord help you through that, he will make the difference.’

Remember our duty to alleviate the burden on others. When Jesus said to ‘let you light shine’ he did not mean to let us shine but our Hope and Confidence in Christ shine bright. So along with being honest about our imperfections to relieve the burden on others we should be displaying our utmost Confidence in Christ to show them the way and source of our ‘at-easness’. 

Honesty Pt2: My Experience

Pt2

I find it hard to pinpoint the exact moment that my mindset changed because I don’t believe it was a moment in time, but it was a series of events and circumstances called ‘Going on a Mission’ that did it. All of a sudden I was faced with more rules and regulations than I was used to. And half of them seemed ridiculous and made because some other sucker ruined it for the rest of us. Over time I realized that perfect obedience was beyond my reach; not just perfect obedience to mission rules, but also to the standard commandments. I just couldn’t do it. There were too many things vying for my energies and efforts. What’s worse is that I looked around me and saw other missionaries who seemed to not have a problem keeping rules and appeared to keep them perfectly. As a green missionary I just assumed that all missionaries were perfect and that I was simply the only one that struggled (the same predicament that most every imperfect person is in).

I can only assume that God set all this up to teach me a lesson that would root itself in me. I can only say it was God orchestrating this and flipping the switch in my heart because I can’t recall a moment when it clicked in my mind. It was like the ‘dews from heaven’.

Here’s what happened; I gave up the illusion that I was perfect and I gave up trying to give off as though I were perfect. I just didn’t feel the need to pretend anymore. It was amazing. All the personal frustration of falling short and not being ‘perfect’ just melted away. Nowadays, those thoughts are like water on a ducks back, they just don’t stick to me. A lot of frustration and unneeded stress comes from frequently falling short of our pretended perfect personas.

If the scriptures are true then Romans 3:23 which says, ‘For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God…’ becomes a balm of Gilead instead of a sting to my pride. God put that verse in there to let us know that not a one of us is perfect; at some point sometime every single one of us has blundered and messed up. How relieving! He wants us to know that our efforts cannot get us there. No matter how good those efforts might be. It requires quite the perspective shift because that verse can certainly hurt the ego and conscious of the even the best of saints. As I accepted this there was a tremendous amount of freedom that opened up to me.  A mountain of weight was lifted off my shoulders.

Ok let’s be clear, If I can say to myself ‘I’m not perfect, so I’m not going to pretend to be’ that doesn’t mean that I’m gonna go and live a life of sin and roll around in my imperfections, it just means that I’m gonna be free from unrighteous self judgment. I no longer have to beat myself up for falling short of the Standard of Perfection because as the scripture says, we all have. I don’t have to put off to anyone for their acceptance because we’re all in the same boat anyways.

I’m also free (or at least the need to do it feels less because God knows I still do) from unrighteous judgment of others. After all; if I’m imperfect being what I am, then, darn it, everyone else is to. So of course someone else is gonna mess up, of course someone else is gonna say dumb things to me. But I don’t need to get hung up on it because we’re in the same boat. It’s easier to forgive because I’m also in desperate need of their forgiveness because I’m sure I’ve done dumb things to them.  The only way either of us is gonna make it is through Jesus so let’s just let imperfection slide off each other’s backs. God wants this desperately as D&C 64:10 implies: ‘I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.’

I’m also a lot less afraid of what people think of me. I realize that even if I was perfect, I’d be judged to be bad by some people. Jesus, who is actually perfect, was a prime example of this. So I might as well just do the best I can and try not to give people reasons to think ill of me and forget about the rest. There is freedom in personal honesty; freedom to be your best self.

Honesty Pt1: False Pretenses

As I sat down to write this, it became larger than I first thought. So it'll be broken up into 3 parts. Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3.

Personal Honesty & Confidence in Christ

Part 1

                I believe there is more to honesty than simply not saying untruthful things. If that was all it was then the vast majority of us would be upright honest people. I mean, it’s fairly logical that if I say something untrue to cover my butt, it’s gonna start a whole mess of untruthful things that will pull me into a web of anxiety. So it’s just better to not to lie to anyone. Life would be much more simple and easy on the whole if everyone followed this idea.

                I’d say honesty is divided into two parts; honesty with our fellowman and honesty with ourselves…ok-there’s probably more ways to divide honesty than two ways, but for my purpose here let’s just keep it simple. I think honesty with others is pretty straight forward and do-able if we put some effort into it. But honesty with ourselves is a much more complicated affair. Accepting who and what we are can really suck sometimes. I mean, come on-who really wants to admit, or worse yet-accept- that they’re imperfect and fall short of almost every supposed social measuring device. Despite what we see on the outside most everyone feels like they come up short of something.

                This is especially true in Mormon culture where we go to church, seminary, mutual, relief society, priesthood and all other such functions where we hear about keeping commandments. We are constantly reminded of the Standard of Perfection. As I listen to all the things I have to do and I look around at all the people who seem to be doing such a good job at keeping all the commandments I tend to feel ‘spiritually small’. This is because I know all too well that I can’t do all these things all the time, and I know God knows I don’t do all these things all the time either. However, by outward appearances it seems like everyone else is doing loads better than me and I’m being passed in the Race of Life.

                As a result of these feelings and the natural urge we all have of wanting to fit in (which is another topic in itself that I will address); my life becomes about putting on the best show so that everyone around me thinks I’m perfect.  I’m not saying this is true of everyone, but it certainly goes through everyone’s heads.

Let’s be fair though; what’s the difference between pretending to keep the commandments perfectly and actually trying to keep the commandments perfectly? Outwardly-nothing; inwardly-everything. Therein lays the difference between an imperfect person and a hypocrite. And this is why we feel the way we do because it appears as though everyone is perfect or at least really close and certainly better than ourselves. I’m not inside their heads feeling their feelings and thinking their thoughts.

As I progress along the path of Pretended Perfection, the deeper and deeper my own lies to myself get. Unlike other people, I am inside my own head; I do think my thoughts and feel my feelings. I know full well that I do not measure up to the Standard of Perfection yet I still put off as though I do. This is dishonesty at its finest. Even if I don’t actually believe that I’m perfect but just act it for the sake of approval, it’s still dishonest. 

Now, if you haven’t felt any of these feelings you are either lying or are delusional. So let’s look at the other side of the coin of dishonesty with oneself.  Instead of feeling bad we aren’t perfect and putting on a façade of perfection, there’s the group of delusional self righteous suckers that actually believe they’re pretty darn close to perfection (this state of mind can also grow from the previously described False Pretense). Regrettably, I would put a past me into this category. I think for a long time I actually did hold onto the idea that I was closer to perfection, or at least better at keeping the commandments, than a lot of my peers. It’s true that Pride is the root of all evil and it’s certainly at the heart of this issue.