Although these message about Jesus Christ can be soothing, I hope by now you have noticed a gap in where you think you should be or want to be and the reality of where you really are. Let me reassure you that you are “normal” and it’s “okay” as long as we press forward with it. Again, it is no accident that we find ourselves powerless and we lack the ability to change ourselves.
Bruce C. Hafen spoke of the refreshing enthusiasm new converts often bring to the lessons they participate in, their callings, and just about everything they are involved in. “As time goes on, however, experience often introduces a new dimension to the perspective of younger and newer Church members. This new dimension is typically a growing awareness of a kind of gap between the real and the ideal---between what is and what ought to be…
“We stand at the inner boundary of reality, reaching out to move our reality closer to our lofty ideals. We first see the distance between these two boundaries when we realize that some things about ourselves or about other Church members are not what we expected---or what we wish they were. That realization can naturally produce some frustration.
“There is a kind of poignancy in those moments when we first discover there might be some limitations to the idea that we can do anything we make up our mind to do.
“...Experiences like these can produce uncertainty and ambivalence---in a word, ambiguity---and we may yearn for simpler, easier times, when life was more clear and more under our control. We might sense within ourselves the beginnings of skepticism, of unwillingness to respond to authority or to invitations to commit ourselves to high sounding goals or projects that don’t seem very realistic.
“Life is full of ambiguities, perhaps because some uncertainty is characteristic of the mortal experience. The mists of darkness in Lehi’s dream are, for that very reason, a strong symbolic representation of life as we face it on this planet (1 Nephi 8:23). Thankfully, many things in mortality are very certain and very clear, as so beautifully represented by the iron rod in Lehi’s dream (v. 19)...But enough complexity pricks and pokes at us to make the topic of dealing with uncertainty at least worth discussing” (Bruce C. Hafen, Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times, 72, 75, 79).
Robert L. Millet said the following, “We do not put off the natural man by living longer. We do not change our natures by simply attending meetings and being involved in the work of the Church. The Church is a divine organization. It administers the saving gospel. The transformation from the natural state to the spiritual state, however, is accomplished only through the mediation and Atonement of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Ghost. No one goes from death to life without that enabling power we call the grace of God. Programs to develop self-control, plans to modify human behavior, and schemes directed toward the shaping of more appropriate actions have fallen and will forever fall far short of the mark which Christ has set. These programs are at best deficient and at worst perverse.
“...Those who are born again or born from above-who die as to the things of unrighteousness and begin to live again as pertaining to the things of the Spirit-are like little children. First and foremost, these people are, like children, clean and pure. Through the atoning blood of Christ they have had their sins remitted and have entered the realm of divine experience. Putting off the natural man involves putting on Christ. As Paul counseled the Saints in his day, those who put off the ‘old man’ are ‘renewed in the spirit of [their] mind.’ They ‘put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness’ (Eph 4:22–24), and ‘which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him’ (Col 3:10)” (emphasis added).
The good news is that through Jesus Christ we really can be covered---totally and completely covered. ALL our sins, difficulties, weaknesses, and inabilities can be covered. God will reach our reaching. We don’t have to clean ourselves up before we can present ourselves to Him. He wants us and will take us as we are---and He will take us right now.
Brad Wilcox said, “The list of struggles seems endless. Obviously, many people live their lives far from the situations they planned and hoped for when they were children. This gives us all the more reason to turn to the Savior, whose message is not just ‘Come unto me,’ but ‘Come as you are.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Go get your act together and then come back when you fit the mold.’ He says, in essence, ‘Let’s start right where you are, and go from there.’ Christ doesn’t wait to offer blessings until our families all look like the happy groups whose pictures appear in the Ensign magazine or in TV commercials. He doesn’t require us to fit any mold before He is willing to mold us” (Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, 59 & 60, emphasis added).
As astounding as this may be to realize, there is still more. Not only does Christ cover us through His mercy meeting the demands of justice and His ability to completely empathize with whatever we are facing, He wants to have a deeper and more personal relationship with us that. We will hit on that up next, but consider the beauty in M. Catherine Thomas's words, "It is better not to do this inner work with guilt and self-recrimination, but rather with fearless trust, within the embrace of the Lord, who picks us up, dusts us off, and whispered, 'We have work to do. Let's get on with it'" (The Godseed, 217, emphasis added). We still have so much to discover together, but understand that God intends for us to do it with our Savior and His love this time in a way that you probably never imagined possible.
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