{"id":42884,"date":"2022-04-22T10:56:43","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T15:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=42884"},"modified":"2022-04-22T10:59:17","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T15:59:17","slug":"spiritual-languages-mistakes-messes-screw-ups-and-other-forms-of-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/04\/spiritual-languages-mistakes-messes-screw-ups-and-other-forms-of-perfection\/","title":{"rendered":"[Spiritual Languages] Mistakes, Messes, Screw-ups, and Other Forms of Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have this unique Latter-day Saint doctrine that Jesus had to learn line upon line, just like we do. [1]<\/a> That is all fine and good, but here\u2019s the problem. We also believe that Jesus was perfect, and these two ideas just don\u2019t mesh. If you do not know everything you are liable to make mistakes, and mistakes mean imperfection. Don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

When we were in Egypt before our tour guide took us to see the pyramids of Giza we were taken to see several other cool but far less impressive pyramids first. On our way to Giza he told us the reason why was because tourists always wanted to know how the pyramids were made and how long it took to make them. He explained that answer couldn\u2019t be given without first taking into account the other pyramids that went before them. Instead of seeing all these pyramids as separate projects interspersed across hundreds of years he explained that it was really one, massive, cross-generational building project, culminating in the great pyramids. Without those previous, messy pyramids there would have been no “great” ones. They were one.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve wondered a lot about the concept of perfection, as, (based on how much it gets brought up in church and conference), I think we all have. It was in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus says to be perfect as God is perfect, but there is an interesting word in there that we often overlook. This commandment was not given in a vacuum; it was given after a long sermon in which Jesus explained what God values. These values are meant to be provocative. Jesus is explaining what God is like by taking the assumptions and values of the world and turning them on their head and saying, \u201cThere! This is what God thinks! This is what God is like!\u201d The Sermon on the Mount is meant to be disorienting. Taking this in to account it may be wise for us to take a second and focus on that word \u201cas\u201d. When Jesus is saying to be perfect he may not mean flawless. Flawless is what the world thinks of when it thinks of perfect. But is that what God thinks of?<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t get many examples of what it means that Jesus learned line upon line. The gospels are so short they are mostly a highlight real. But there are two stories that give us a tiny glimpse. One is when Jesus tries to heal a blind man and the first time it doesn\u2019t work<\/em>. [2]<\/a> We don\u2019t tend to tell this story very often, and when I have heard it told it\u2019s always been to explain that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing but for whatever reason healed the man this way. We avoid the most obvious answer, and the one that is well within keeping of our own doctrine: that Jesus was learning and the first time it just didn\u2019t work, so he had to try again. The other is the story of Jesus and the gentile woman whose child was possessed. At first Jesus refuses to help because this woman didn\u2019t fit into his mission as he then understood it, but the woman persists and Jesus, amazed by her faith, complies. [3]<\/a> Again, I have heard this story retold and twisted around in multiple ways to try and explain that Jesus set this whole thing up with every intention of helping the woman. What I have never heard is what the text and Jesus himself indicate\u2014that he changed his mind.<\/p>\n

This idea might make us uncomfortable; sometimes people are outraged by it. But if Latter-day Saints feel uncomfortable we should ask ourselves why? We believe that Jesus had to learn and grow. In the Doctrine and Covenants it explains that this growth process is actually definitive to who Christ is! Yet we are still deeply discomfited with the idea that an adult Christ may have had to learn. May even have made mistakes. But why? Is it because of our understanding of perfection\u2026or our misunderstanding of it?<\/p>\n

One of the most common ways that the spirit is described is as a guide, which is clearly is. But we often, if not always, take this to mean that the spirit\u2019s job is to help us to go the \u201cright\u201d way. This is based on an assumption that God has a path that has been meticulously planned for us and that our job is to just let go and let God, through the spirit, guide us down it. This necessarily means that all other paths are wrong. It means that for every decision there is one right answer, but God won\u2019t usually explicitly tell us what it is, so we need the spirit to guide us. And if things don\u2019t work out? If we meet with pain and disaster? Then we berate ourselves for not having been in tune, or God for not being more clear when we were trying so hard. Or maybe this is exactly how God wanted things to work out and we need to be more humble? I am not saying this sarcastically or flippantly. These experiences are agonizing. Sometimes so much so that hearts and minds are left shattered, and individuals and loved ones are left picking up pieces trying desperately to make some sense of what\u2019s left. Mistakes are not always a little thing.<\/p>\n

But we are children of God. We talk about that a lot and how that means that we are special and have meaning. Which is true. But, as we\u2019ve discussed, it also means that we are creators<\/em>. It means that we are born with the ability and responsibility to create baked into our DNA. How can we possibly do that if everything of meaning in our lives has already been planned and mapped out for us and our job is to just let go and let it happen? Our mission in life may not be to mindlessly accept a mission, but to craft it as co-creators with God. And that process means making mistakes. In fact, as multiple studies in neuroscience have found, mistakes are integral to the process of learning. Without them our understanding is shallow and limited.<\/p>\n

This matters because it means that mistakes may be part of the perfection that Christ was talking about that day on a hill when he so relentlessly turned the world on its head. When he said to be perfect as God is perfect, he may not have meant \u201cbecause\u201d (which is usually the word we interchange with \u201cas\u201d), but \u201cin the way\u201d. He had just given a sermon in which he laid out what it would look like to follow God, and that to the world it looks far from perfect; it looks ridiculous. In other words, what perfection looks like to God may not be what it looks like to us. We know even more of this now from the Doctrine and Covenants and King Follett. God became God because of a long process of learning that came before. Gods are created through mortal experiences, and mortal experiences are messy.<\/p>\n

The spirit is a guide, but that doesn\u2019t mean that its role is to help us avoid mistakes. In fact, one of its most important functions may be to help us to face them. Let me make something very, very clear: I am not saying that the spirit leads us to sin and hurt each other<\/em><\/strong>. But that is also kind of the point. We have conflated the idea of sin and mistake so much that we often can\u2019t tell the difference. Sin is when we put ourselves before everything else no matter the cost to others. It is when we understand and claim to believe in something and we choose not to be faithful to it. (And we all have done this.) Mistakes are what happen when we don\u2019t know; when we lack experience. They are what happen when we are trying to do the best we know how and what we know isn\u2019t enough, but we have to make a decision anyway. Mistakes are what happen when we have blind spots but don\u2019t know it yet. The spirit\u2019s role may not be to protect us from this ignorance. It may be to stand with us as we walk into it, and help us to face its repercussions head on so that now we can learn things we couldn\u2019t before. The spirit\u2019s job isn\u2019t to make us flawless. It is to help us understand. To help us to be perfect in the way God is perfect. But maybe, hopefully, our sacred, spirit-supported mistakes are as much part of that perfection process as the exalted being we hope to be at the end of it.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> D&C 93<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Mark 8: 22-25<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Matthew 15: 21-28<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have this unique Latter-day Saint doctrine that Jesus had to learn line upon line, just like we do. [1] That is all fine and good, but here\u2019s the problem. We also believe that Jesus was perfect, and these two ideas just don\u2019t mesh. If you do not know everything you are liable to make mistakes, and mistakes mean imperfection. Don\u2019t they? When we were in Egypt before our tour guide took us to see the pyramids of Giza we were taken to see several other cool but far less impressive pyramids first. On our way to Giza he told us the reason why was because tourists always wanted to know how the pyramids were made and how long it took to make them. He explained that answer couldn\u2019t be given without first taking into account the other pyramids that went before them. Instead of seeing all these pyramids as separate projects interspersed across hundreds of years he explained that it was really one, massive, cross-generational building project, culminating in the great pyramids. Without those previous, messy pyramids there would have been no “great” ones. They were one. I\u2019ve wondered a lot about the concept of perfection, as, (based on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42887,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42884\/revisions\/42887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}