Thoughts on perfection... and the efforts to reach that state..."How long would you play an instrument if you stopped when you hit a wrong note? "
What a powerful analogy this is for me. What a silly question. We all know that no one will reach any level of proficiency in a musical instrument unless they practice, practice, practice. Through that practice they will hit many, many, many wrong notes. No one begrudges those mistakes or thinks the musician lacking any potential because of those wrong notes. On the contrary, the sour notes come with the territory of improvement.
So why do I expect myself to reach perfection without any practice? Why do I expect myself to not make any mistakes on my road to salvation?
And on the flip side, why would I expect those around me to be fault free as well? We're all in it together, hitting wrong notes, saying the wrong things, doing the wrong things as we work towards our goal of becoming more like our Heavenly Father. That includes my husband and my children as well... Sometimes we expect so much out of those we love, we forget to give them some much needed slack when they hit those wrong notes.
What a message of love and hope this one analogy painted for me. A message of forgiveness, tolerance and love of my own faults and weaknesses and for those of others.
"If something is worth doing it's worth doing badly while we learn to do it better. Things like patience, parenting, love."
What a powerful analogy this is for me. What a silly question. We all know that no one will reach any level of proficiency in a musical instrument unless they practice, practice, practice. Through that practice they will hit many, many, many wrong notes. No one begrudges those mistakes or thinks the musician lacking any potential because of those wrong notes. On the contrary, the sour notes come with the territory of improvement.
So why do I expect myself to reach perfection without any practice? Why do I expect myself to not make any mistakes on my road to salvation?
And on the flip side, why would I expect those around me to be fault free as well? We're all in it together, hitting wrong notes, saying the wrong things, doing the wrong things as we work towards our goal of becoming more like our Heavenly Father. That includes my husband and my children as well... Sometimes we expect so much out of those we love, we forget to give them some much needed slack when they hit those wrong notes.
What a message of love and hope this one analogy painted for me. A message of forgiveness, tolerance and love of my own faults and weaknesses and for those of others.
"If something is worth doing it's worth doing badly while we learn to do it better. Things like patience, parenting, love."
"[Daily] Repentance is the plan-- it's not the back up plan." Heavenly Father gave us repentance, he gave us the atonement as a tool to use on our road to perfection because he knew we would need it.
"Forgiveness [of self and others] is giving up hope of having a better [or different] past." Isn't that beautiful? So often I find myself looking backing thinking I would feel better if only this had happened, or I wish this... Forgiveness of myself and of others is accepting, acknowledging and getting over the fact that the past can not change. Holding onto the hope for a better past will never yield a positive or healthy feeling.
"When we think 'I want to be the only one who never messes up' we are trying to live a plan like the one Satan presented." Fault free living. That is not Heavenly Father's plan.
