Patience unto Perfection

I learned a lot this past transfer. After a little over eight months in one area, I really came to love Freedom and all the people there. To jump into a brand new area for my first time threw me off quite a bit for a little while. I missed the heck out of some people, and while I never doubted why I was on a mission, I was certainly frustrated a time or two about things not quite being exactly how they were in Freedom, at times forgetting the countless blessings of being in Warsaw. Now, this whole ramble here is not really what my post is about, but it sets the stage for why I spent two weeks studying a lot about patience. What I learned seemed pretty cool to me.

In the closing of the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior admonishes us to be as perfect as our Father in Heaven. That is quite a statement! Luckily, in the third to last verse of the Book of Mormon, Moroni explains to us just how to go about attaining perfection:

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him."

How cool is that? When we come unto Christ, we can become perfect. But wait! In Ether, Moroni laments that he isn't nearly as eloquent as a writer as the Brother of Jared, and in Ether 12:27 Christ tells Moroni something interesting about what happens when we come to Him:

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness." 

Whoa, whoa, whoa. So if we come unto Christ, we can be perfected.... and be shown our imperfect weaknesses? Precisely. That same verse continues:

"I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

See, Christ's Atonement isn't about just turning a blind eye towards the gaps in our strengths; it's about filling those gaps and truly perfecting us.

Now, I had introduced this post talking about patience. Well, in the scriptures, the words "patience" and "long suffering" are used pretty interchangeably. How fitting is that? When we want something and we can't have it, we quite literally suffer inside. As I've studied patience, I've found it quite literally embodies everything else that Christ has asked us to base our lives around.

"Faith embodies patience," Stephen Covey said. "It is a contradiction for someone to think or feel he has faith but lacks patience.... Patience is faith in action. Patience is emotional diligence."

So why do we have patience in the first place? Because we truly believe that good things are coming. We have faith in the promises of Jesus Christ, that any level of trial and struggle we go through "shall give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good" (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7). Since we know that things will all work out, we might as well wait patiently for them.

Of course, it's not always so easy, but I really like the advice Paul gave in Romans 5:3-5:

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

Let's just glory in these hard times, because we have faith that it is only through these challenges that we will truly perfect ourselves through Christ, our Lord! Alma said something fairly similar at the end of his famous "seed of faith" analogy in Alma 32:

But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing unto everlasting life.

And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.

Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.

See, it's after we've continually exercised our faith that the fruit of our faith is really shown. We do what God has asked us to do because we have faith that it will work. We diligently exercise our faith, working hard and strong, likely without seeing any results, simply because we have the faith that the Lord's promises are real.

That fruit, I have learned, is perfection.

As we strive to really come unto Christ, we learn all sorts of things that we can't do quite right. What I have realized, though, is that these weaknesses aren't anything new. They are the same weaknesses we've always had. The difference is that God shows us these weaknesses when we are in a situation to use His grace to fix them. To make them become strengths. To get us one small step closer to eternal perfection.

If you are anything like me, though, that patience takes a lot of effort. I like things now more than later. I really understand the idea of long-suffering. But I found great comfort in this quote from Elder Holland, given in a fireside when he was the president of Brigham Young University:

"So if your prayers don't always seem answered, take heart. One greater than you... cried, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Matthew 27:46). If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived."

We just need to always remember Solomon's writings in Ecclesiastes 3: "To every things there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Luckily, we have a Heavenly Father who knows the right time for everything.

Now, I hope this all flowed together the way it does in my mind. Really, here's the sum total of it: Sometimes we want things that we simply cannot have. We want growth. We want progress. Really, we want perfection. Now here's the important part: It's not that we cannot have this; it's that we cannot have it yet. Only through the grace of the Redeemer of the world may we make our weak things become strong. Only by patiently submitting to His all-knowing will may we ever truly reach the divine potential He has in mind for us. It's all on His time.

So, let's come unto Christ, recognize our weaknesses, and perfect ourselves! Amulek teaches in Alma 34 about "faith unto repentance."

Now here is a new one: "Patience unto perfection."