Adam and Eve, Commandments, and Choices

One thing that’s always bothered me about the story of Adam and Eve is the way God gave Adam and Eve conflicting commandments. He commanded them not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and He commanded them to multiply and replenish the earth. And it was impossible for them to do both simultaneously. They could not obey one commandment without sacrificing the other. Why would God set them up for failure like that? Why would He put them in a situation where they were forced to break one commandment or the other? It seemed unfair and unkind, not something a just and loving Heavenly Father would do.

I’m sure there is more than one explanation for why this may have been. I wanted to share though an insight that struck me last night about this situation with Adam and Eve that I had never thought of before.

Ted and I were having a discussion that we’ve had multiple times before in our marriage about how as members of Christ’s Church there are multiple things we are encouraged to do, and it seems impossible to do them all. We are told to get an education, not wait to marry and start a family, ideally have the mother of the family stay home to care for the children, and stay out of debt. Several of these admonitions seem contradictory. Maybe some people are able to do them all at the same time, but we have not been able to. We’ve felt that we, like Adam and Eve, have had to choose which commandments to prioritize. Right now, for example, we can either have me home with our children, or we can have me leave home to go get a full-time job and work on getting out of debt more quickly. We can’t do both. We are in debt because we prioritized getting an education and not waiting to get married and start a family over staying out of debt. We couldn’t do both. To stay out of debt, we would have had to give up one of those other things that we are also encouraged to do.

The thought I had last night as Ted and I were talking was that maybe one of the reasons God gave Adam and Eve conflicting commandments was to teach us about the kinds of choices we would need to make in this life. We are all put in situations where we have to choose between multiple good things that God asks us to do. It’s not always possible to do all the good things He asks us to do simultaneously. This is not a perfect world, we are not perfect people, and we have a finite amount of time and resources. Maybe through the story of Adam and Eve, Heavenly Father was trying to teach us the importance of seeking the guidance of the Spirit to know how best to apply God’s teachings in our own individual lives. We are all unique and in unique situations, so what the application of God’s commandments looks like for each of us at each stage of our lives will be different. And that’s okay. At one point one commandment may take precedence, and in another situation another commandment may take precedence. And it’s the Spirit that will help us make these choices.

Adam and Eve realized that in order to follow God’s command to multiply and replenish the earth, they would need to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and leave the Garden of Eden. Although making this choice gave them the opportunity to progress and have children, it also resulted in less desirable consequences such as becoming mortal and being separated from God’s presence both physically and spiritually. It’s interesting to me that God did not stop Adam and Eve from experiencing the undesirable consequences of their choice along with the desirable consequences. What He did do was provide a means of ultimate deliverance from those undesirable consequences by providing a Savior for them, Jesus Christ.

In like manner, I have hope that God will ultimately, as we continue to be diligent in striving to keep all His commandments to the best of our ability, provide a means of deliverance for us from the undesirable consequences of our good but imperfect choices as well. Even though right now we are prioritizing having children and me staying home with our children over getting out of debt, I feel like God has given us many small blessings along the way to help us continue to improve our financial situation one tiny step at a time. I’ve had an assortment of side jobs that I’ve been able to do while still staying home with our children, and Ted has been blessed with both a full-time job in his field and a part-time Air National Guard job. Our progress on getting out of debt is very slow, but I have faith that God will continue to open doors for us, and that as we remain faithful to Him and follow the guidance of His Spirit, all the blessings necessary for us to accomplish what we need to in this life will be ours. I love my Savior and am so grateful for His mercy, patience and guidance as we strive to make the best choices we can with the time, resources, and opportunities we have each been given.

Have I Done Any Good?

I realized today that throughout my life I've often used other people's reactions to me as a type of barometer to gauge how my life is going and how I am doing as a person. There are several problems with this approach to life. First of all, the way other people react to me is a better reflection of who they are and of the choices they are making than of who I am or of my choices. Second, other people are imperfect, and the way they react to me at any given time is often influenced by all sorts of things that have nothing to do with me at all. Third, even if other people are thinking nice things about me all the time, I often attribute negative thoughts and emotions to them that they never even had in the first place. So, all around, using other people and their reactions to me as an indication of the quality of either my life or myself is a very bad plan and makes for a terribly inaccurate barometer.

So I decided that I needed a replacement barometer for my life. What could I use in place of the reactions of others to let me know how I was doing and how my life was going? I thought of God's love first, but then I decided that's not much of a barometer, since even if I was a terrible person and doing terrible things, God would still love me. Then I thought of gauging it by how well I'm keeping commandments, but since I am also imperfect, gauging my life by how perfectly I am doing everything I am supposed to sounds like a quick way to drowned in an ocean of guilt. 

I finally hit on a replacement barometer that I feel good about. There's a song called "Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?" that we sing at church sometimes. When I thought of it, I decided that gauging myself and my life by the good I have done or have tried to do each day is a much better indicator of where I am and of how I should feel about myself and my life. I do some good each day, not always the same good, but always some good. The product of my efforts to do good will often be imperfect, and sometimes others may choose not to accept the efforts I make, but that doesn't change the fact that I tried to do good the best way I knew how to at that time. Then each day I can offer all the good I have tried to do to God and ask Him to bless and multiply my efforts and use them to further His work of salvation for His children on the earth. I offer what I can give, and then God does the rest, like when the lad offered his five barley loaves and two small fishes, and Jesus used them to feed five thousand people (John 6:9-14, King James Bible). That's how you live a good life: do what good you can each day, try to improve when you make mistakes, forgive others for their mistakes, and ask God to guide your efforts and to use them to further His divine work for His children. And that's my new barometer: What good have I done in the world today?

Easter Sunday and My Thoughts on the Savior

I finally decided to join the blog world. The inspiration I received on Sunday about the Savior finally made me decide I needed a place to share these kinds of thoughts and inspiration.

Sunday was Easter. Easter is the time when we celebrate the Savior's Atonement and Resurrection. Lately I've been trying to come to know the Savior better and to feel His love more fully in my life. Intellectually, I know Jesus Christ was and is an amazing man. I know that He is the Son of God, and that He loves all of God's children so much that He was willing to suffer and to die to give us all a chance to repent and be forgiven of our sins so we can return to live with our Heavenly Father again. 

I know these things, but often I have a difficult time internalizing this knowledge and feeling the appropriate amount of gratitude and love for my Savior. I know what He did was great and I'm grateful, but it's hard for me to wrap my head around who He is and what He did and to feel all the implications of that deep down in my heart. It's hard to really know and love someone and feel their love in return when you can't spend time with that person, at least for me.

So I've been praying to have a better understanding of my relationship with the Savior and to feel His love more in my life, to be able to really give Him "all [my] heart, might, mind and strength." The talks in church on Sunday were focused on Christ and the Atonement in honor of Easter, and I got some good ideas from those on how to work on building a personal relationship with the Savior. Then, on our drive back to Logan (we were down in Utah County visiting family for Easter weekend), we listened to the song "I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe. Here are the lyrics to the first verse and the chorus, in case you don't know it:

I can only imagine 

What it will be like 

When I walk 

By your side 

I can only imagine 

What my eyes will see 

When your face 

Is before me 

I can only imagine 

[Chorus:]

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel 

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still 

Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall 

Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all 

I can only imagine 

I've always loved this song, but this time as I listened to it, I really started to ponder how I might react when I am in Christ's presence again, how I would want that meeting to go. As I pondered, I suddenly saw this image of myself giving Christ a big hug and saying, "I missed you so much!" 

This image of our reunion gave me a new perspective on my relationship with the Savior. It made me realize that it's very likely that I did have a close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ before this life, that we would have known each other well as members of the same family, God's family, and that we would have talked and spent time together. He loves me because He knows me personally, His younger sister. I already have a close relationship with Him, I just can't remember it right now. He and I are just in the "interruption" stage of our relationship, as President Dieter F. Uchtdorf discussed in his recent General Conference address (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/grateful-in-any-circumstances?lang=eng), but that doesn't make the relationship any less real, and someday when I see Him again I will remember. So, rather than try to build a relationship with someone I can't see, I'm just trying to remember a relationship I already have.

It makes the Savior seem so much more real to me to imagine Him as a dear friend that I am currently parted from but who still loves me and whom I will see again. When I see Him again, I will tell Him how much I missed Him and how grateful I am that He never gave up on me despite my sins and weaknesses, but that He did what was necessary to rescue me and to bring me back home to live with Him and with my Heavenly Father once again. What a glorious day that will be! Happy Easter everyone!