GOOD ENOUGH

 

Some twenty years ago a close friend of mine died in her sleep at age 45. She was a convert and a returned missionary like me. Soon after her death I was speaking to her mother who told me she was reading her daughter’s journals and what she learnt brought great sadness to her. She said my friend always felt that she was ‘not good enough for the Lord’. It saddened me greatly because my friend’s mother was left with the impression that the Church made her daughter feel she was never good enough. Not a good impression for a non-member.

I read something significant yesterday which made me think of my friend and I hoped that her time in the spirit world has taught her this: “We are looked upon by God as though we were in eternity. God dwells in eternity, and does not view things as we do.” (“Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p 356)

This has brought amazing peace to my soul because despite everything I have endured and sacrificed in this life to remain faithful to God, I still fall into that trap of feeling not good enough when in reality my efforts and not my level of perfection, make me good enough for the sanctifying grace of Jesus Christ that will wipe away all my mortal foibles and inadequacies. I am good enough for His saving grace. I hope my friend understands this now.

I am comforted knowing that God sees the eternal me when he looks at me in this weakened state of mortality, that He remembers me from before and who I will become in the end. This moment in time is almost insignificant in and of itself compared to that. It reminds me of that scripture: “My thoughts are not your thoughts and neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

We tend to look at everything from the earthly perspective while the Lord looks at it from the eternal one. He focuses on our worth which is eternal. The earthly existence is finite and therefore all we glean here is fleeting and not of real substance.

There is one way, however, we are not good enough. We are not good enough without the Saviour Jesus Christ. He alone can add the missing cubit to our eternal perfection and this is how: “All sin and every transgression, except one, that man can be guilty of, may be forgiven; and there is a salvation for all men, either in this world or the world to come, who have not committed the unpardonable sin, there being a provision either in this world or the world of spirits.”  (“Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p 356)

This to me means more than forgiveness for sin. It means that all of my earthly self that was at one time unacceptable to God will be wiped away: my lack of dignity, my blatant stupidity, my frivolity, my arrogance, my stubbornness, my every trespass, every transgression, every embarrassment, will one day be wiped away through the atoning power of the Saviour Jesus Christ who will make me whole and pure and bright as the rays of the sun if I have godly sorrow in my heart and my efforts at repentance yield fruit of my utmost capacity but even then, the credit will always be His and not mine.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: He Lifts Me Up by Danny Hahlbohm)