Mistakes and Course Corrections

"The heavens will not be filled with those who never made mistakes".  So says Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the current First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mistakes are part of learning to govern ourselves. Sometimes they are relatively minor and require only a slight adjustment in attitude and behavior. Other mistakes require a major course correction and complete adjustment in how one views oneself and personal behavioral choices and decision making processes.

How quickly we can perceive the need in others! How slowly we perceive the same need in ourselves!

Heaven will not be filled with those who are perfect throughout mortality, but with the forgiven who learned through their sad experiences how to approach the Lord and receive His Divine forgiveness for their mistakes.

While mistakes are the price we pay to gain understanding and wisdom, there is a difference between making a mistake and making a choice. To do one implies no understanding, wisdom or knowledge of potential consequence. To do the other means you understand and accept the consequences because you either do not care about them or that you don't fully comprehend them.

In either case, forgiveness is possible if one learns to be open to the gentle promptings of the Good Shepherd who would have us all return to His fold.

In the masterwork Handel's Messiah, there is a passage lifted from the inspired text of the Holy Bible that fits our human condition quite well. The prophet Isaiah penned in chapter 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all".
We, all of us, have sinned and in thus sinning have separated ourselves spiritually from God and His Christ. Have we not been told that no unclean thing can enter the presence of God? And sinning makes us by absolute definition to be unclean. So we have gone astray from our ability to return. And we need help.

Unable as we are to wash ourselves sufficiently to remove both the sin and the desire for the sin, we need someone who has the power to do something we cannot do for ourselves. We need someone who can quite literally bring about a change in us - in our mind and heart - to alter our disposition to see running from the safety of the sheepfold as a "fun" thing. We need someone to teach us that are justifications are lies. We need someone to show us that our "fun" is really leading us to the wolves for slaughter at their will and pleasure. We need someone to save us.

Before the very foundation of the world was laid, Jesus Christ stepped forward as our Advocate with the Father. It was not a light moment for the die was cast that an infinite and eternal Atonement must be made in order to take carnal flesh and raise the spiritual potential within, to elevate the soul to the oneness that could only be done in blood by one who never sinned, to alter the very course of our  lives if only we would choose to "come, follow me!" as the Savior gently intreats each one of us. An old familiar sacrament hymn reminds us "There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin, He only could unlock the gate of Heaven and let us in".  Since we know we cannot pay for all that we have done, and since that means our very debt to our sinful choices and our wayward mistakes leaves us outside the feast chamber of the supper of the Bridegroom, the only way we can bridge the chasm is to rely on the Savior's scarred, bloody and broken body to wash us clean and make us worthy to enter.

But we have a work to do in order for it to occur.

We have to CHOOSE - deliberately, willingly, and each and every day choose - to follow the Master and accept of the Sinless and merciful offering that the Atoning One alone could make in our behalf. And make no mistake, it IS work. We cannot buy salvation, but without the work of desiring and opening our heart and mind to the change and transformation of God and Christ, we can in nowise be fit for the kingdom.

Why is that change deemed work?

We are prideful. We are arrogant. We are deceitful. We are stubborn. We justify our sins. We honor our self above all else. We seek our own. We condemn others. We judge without honor. We cheat. We lie. We steal. We abuse. We corrupt.

And God the Father loves each one of us to send The One who could and would redeem us all - if only WE be willing. The fact that God sent His Only Begotten Son to die for us and rise to live again shows fully the covenant they intend to honor in full every whit.

It is we ourselves who stand in the way of that salvation through our vain delays, our pitiful excuses and our dishonorable intentions to "get away with sin" as if God will wink at ours and destroy our fellows for the same because they are perceived by us to be wicked simply because they are not us.

Work.

Overcoming any bad thing or habit takes work. Ask the person who is trying to give up the dangerous habit of smoking or alcohol addiction. Ask the food addict about eating only enough to live instead of living only to eat. Speak to the sex addict who puts personal gratification above every other consideration and destroys themselves in the process.

Giving up a "worldly pleasure" requires work, blood, sweat and tears - and not all of that is on our side of the veil of heaven. God is with us through Emmanuel whom He sent to save all that be willing to receive not only salvation but a joint heir-ship with Christ.

He isn't saying he just wants to save us to be slaves in the kingdom, although I am willing to bet many of us perpetual sinners would be happy to scrub floors and rinse dishes  just to be allowed into any part of heaven.

No, children of God, we are being offered ALL that the Father has if we will but be willing to do the work that is required to create that mighty change of heart that we need to truly become saved by God and accepted through Christ.

But we cannot do any of this alone. That is why we have the comfort, consolation and continual presence of the Holy Spirit to guide us as we walk along. Sure, we stumble. But Christ is more than able to help us - even those of us who willingly make choices that put us outside the light.

He can bring us AND our willing heart back to the light and love, if we are willing to work enough to change what we can change and rely upon God and Christ to help us every step of the way.

Sheri Dew spoke of this relationship by saying "The Savior isn't our last chance, He is our only chance. Our only chance to overcome self doubt and catch a vision of who we may become. Our only chance to repent and have our sins washed clean. Our only chance to purify our hearts, subdue our weaknesses, and avoid the adversary. Our only chance to obtain redemption and exaltation. Our only chance to find peace and happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come".
Our biggest challenge and our heaviest work in mortal life will be that of determining what we are carrying and why we are carrying it as we learn through the example of Jesus Christ what we need to lay down at His feet and what simply needs to be discarded entirely.

It is WORK of the most compelling magnitude to cast aside so far as we CAN and ARE ABLE those things that keep us outside the light. It is WORK to change our attitudes, our desires and our habits. It is WORK to change patterns, friendships and circumstances. It is WORK to put God and Christ first in an increasingly sinful world that makes sin seem so very appealing and desirable.

But we are not alone in the work!! We can have the spiritual help we need even in the first faltering moment that we cry unto God for His help,  His mercy and His grace as we seek to overcome and make the needed changes in our life to receive more of His fulness and the full benefits and blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In speaking of our burdens to overcome and change, Sheri Dew says:



"When we cast our burden upon the Lord, He sustains us either by helping us carry the burden or by ridding us of it entirely. Alma's people experienced this when their burdens 'were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease.'  The result: They submitted cheerfully and with patience to the will of the Lord. Ultimately, 'so great was their faith and their patience' that the Lord delivered them out of bondage. (Mosiah 24:14-16)  Baggage, however, is another matter entirely. Burdens have the potential to exalt us, but baggage just weighs us down and wears us out. When we don't repent, sin becomes baggage. Natural-man behaviors that we aren't ready to give up become baggage. Worry, jealousy, and guilt are baggage. Resentment, the desire to retaliate, fear, and insecurity create unbearable baggage. We CHOOSE whether or not to pick up baggage, and Satan loves nothing more than loading us down like pack mules".

Think of all of our pet sins as being packages and cargo thrust atop a mule. The more we carry, the less likely we are to like the load, but sometimes we comfort ourselves in the load by justifying it. We rationalize that we deserve the load and the burden and the weight because we have become spiritually blunted to the truth - we carry a load because we have refused the work of repentance. How stupid is that? We have a Savior. He WILL help us, only upon the condition that we are willing to allow it. The GIFT is offered. But in order for the gift to be realize upon us, we actually have to apply the gift to ourselves!

Sheri Dew explains more: "Repentance is, frankly, just plain smart, because sin makes you stupid: Stupid because you are deaf, dumb, and blind to the ways of the Lord. Stupid because habitual sin drives the Spirit away, leaving you outside the protective influence of the Holy Ghost. Stupid because it makes you incapable of drawing upon the powers of heaven. Being stupid costs a lot. Sin costs a lot, too.

It can cost time, money, peace of mind, progress, self-respect, your integrity and virtue, your family, the trust of those you love, and even your Church membership. Sin is just plain stupid. And the cost is off the charts. So repent now. Repent daily. If you want to be sanctified, repentance is not optional.

Obedience, on the other hand, is brilliant, and its fruits are endless—one of which is happiness. The only way that I know to be happy is to live the gospel. It is not possible to sin enough to be happy. It is not possible to buy enough to be happy or to entertain or indulge yourself enough to be happy. Happiness and joy come only when you are living up to who you are".
Course corrections and needed adjustments need not be viewed with irritation and anger. Instead, take a longer view and consider the obstacles that a minor change now will help you avoid. Soul crushing burdens can be lifted and removed long before we reach their junction by making spiritually sound choices  now. This does not mean there will never be challenges and that our mortality will be a blissful sail upon a calm sea. It does, however, mean that we understand that He who can calm the winds and the waves is our Master and the Good Shepherd of our hearts who can and will save us from the storm, if only we are willing to be saved.

Perry Mason, travel dreams and vocal exercises

I don't sleep a lot at night. Pain management issues being what they are it is catch as catch can for sleep most of the time. So if you find me napping at an odd time and likely in an odd position, that is why.

Jared felt like I didn't need much sleep and got me up from my bed way too early by yelling. Yep. Yelling. No reason. Just yelling.

Convincing this grown man that others are still sleeping or hoping to sleep or just lying in a darkened room to attempt to sleep matters nothing to him. He is up so everyone else should be up to attend to whatever he may or may not decide he needs.

During what sleep I was able to get, I had a dream that would have made the art of Salvador Dali feel right at home. Black and white melted into color that melted into fuzzy blends of black, white, Technicolor and shades of gray. Hollywood has nothing on the palette of my imagination.

Perry Mason was in my dream along with Elliot Ness and the Untouchables while I was traveling as a spy/teacher in South America. Naturally, as the climate there was much warmer than the 30 degrees we currently have, I tossed my blankets off and then got cold where the dream abruptly shifted to Russian ambiance and temperature.

As Jared started to make his vocal exercises louder, I realized I had no choice but to get up and stay up out of my nocturnal roost.

The dream didn't make sense while I was dreaming it and it makes much less sense now that I am up and moving. It was a regurgitated mismatch of television programs and odd desires to travel to foreign lands that I have always felt.

Supposing that one of the main reasons that I dream weird stuff is the brain doing its own exercises, I try not to read too much into these odd thoughts. The only time it is otherwise is when I have nightmares. Then I don't want to read them at all. I just want to forget them.

Being jarred into consciousness by the very loud noises a grown man can create is not soothing to the psyche that has already been tossed around in various scenarios in the dream state.

Now that everyone is up an hour and a half later, Jared is very quiet in his exclamations. I'm sure part of that alleged quiet is because the world is waking up and muffling the volume of his sounds. When everything is still and dark, sound is amplified and so is the irritation caused by the sound.

Maybe I can get some rest later. But the "To Do" list on my desk suggests that it will not be until later in the day if then.

God bless the insomniacs. I fear I am their leader.