6. Grace

The podcast is moving to biweekly in September.

From a sacrament meeting talk on Grace:

• "Am I doing enough?" is probably not a useful question.
• We are always saved by grace.
• We can't make ourselves more--or less--valuable by doing things.
• Christ is the ideal for encouragement and inspiration.
• Our progress is measured from where we are now back to where we started.
• "Always Measure Backward" - Dan Sullivan
• God loves you and there is nothing you can do to change that.

References:

• 2 Nephi 25:23
• “Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders Among You,” April 2016
• “You Are My Hands,” April 2010
•  The Broken Heart [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989], 155
• Romans 8 
• John 3:16
• Dan Sullivan’s excellent book The GAP and the GAIN: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success 
• “What Does It Mean to Be Perfect?” devotional given on March 19, 2002, at the Provo Missionary Training Center
• John 15 
• John 1
• Ephesians 2
• D&C 93:17
• Samuel the Lamanite “‘striving with unwearied diligence”
• Adam Miller's excellent book Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking
• Matthew 20:1-15

You found me! If what you heard on the No Empty Chairs podcast gives you hope for more help, please schedule a free Conversation with Candice. You can also visit candiceclarkcoaching.com for more information about how coaching tools can help you keep your relationship with your children and your faith. While you're there, be sure to pull up a chair and sign up with your email to be the first to know about news and events for moms whose kids don't come to church.

It's going to be okay, and even better!

Transcript

Before we dive in today, I want to let you know that I’ve decided to change the pace of the podcast. I am moving to a biweekly publication schedule for September. I’ve had some things I wanted to say and I am off to a good start. I want the pace to be sustainable so I can keep showing up for you regularly.

Today’s episode is based on a talk I gave in my ward sacrament meeting. I had a powerful experience preparing this talk. I was struggling to write something worth hearing on my assigned topic of striving. I wanted to include my testimony of Jesus’s grace. It wasn’t coming together until I realized what the problem was. The problem was that I was trying to write a talk about striving that mentioned grace. What we all really need in sacrament meeting is more Jesus. I realized that I really wanted to write a Jesus-centered talk about grace that mentioned striving. So that’s what I did. I hope it blesses your life. I hope you recognize the grace that’s always available to you, and the grace that’s always available to your kids, whether or not they come to church. With that introduction, here’s my talk:

Today, I am talking about grace. I will share with you my testimony of Jesus. Let’s start with 2 Nephi 25:23.

“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”

Sometimes we ask ourselves whether we are doing enough, and we use this scripture to support the idea that it’s a good question. Often, it is not a useful question. I mean, enough for what? Enough to make the Relief Society President happy with us? Enough to make our children like us? Enough to please our parents? What is enough? I promise you, you’re doing enough. You could do nothing all day long, and it would be enough. Jesus already loves you. That is the nature of Jesus.

According to Elder Jeffrey Holland “Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever.” (“Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders Among You,” April 2016)

What Nephi is saying to me in this verse is that we could never do so much that we wouldn’t still need to be saved by grace. If you checked every box, you would not be able to save yourself, you would still be saved by grace. We can’t outrun our human limitations, and that isn’t our purpose. Our purpose is to grow into being like God, to let grace into our lives in a more expansive way. The moment we reject the goodness inside of us and judge ourselves as not good enough is the moment we step away from the godliness of Jesus’ infinite love.

Elder Dieter Uchtdorf has reminded us all that, whatever we look like or do, every one of us $20 bills here on earth is already worth the full $20 (“You Are My Hands,” April 2010). It doesn’t matter where we’ve been or where we’re going.

But we often feel afraid that if we were kinder to ourselves, we would just stop doing anything at all, and then, we fear, we would be worth less. Aren’t we supposed to be progressing eternally? If we don’t have to earn grace by keeping commandments, then what’s the point of commandments?

Here’s the thing: there aren’t just two options. We don’t have to choose between performing endless labors with extreme anxiety about what is still left on the to-do list OR accepting where we are right now as permanent and doing nothing at all to progress. There’s a whole spectrum of options in between. If we move toward the middle, we might find ourselves resting in the feeling of peace and safety that can come from loving ourselves already right now–just like Jesus does. In this protected space we can open ourselves up to the discomfort required to grow and expand our capacity. We might find that there are things we genuinely WANT to do of our own free will and choice.

The human brain is designed to keep us safe: to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and expend as little energy as possible. That’s part of being a functional human.

When we ignore the fact that our value is inherent and cannot be changed, we can get caught on a treadmill trying to avoid the pain of believing we aren’t worthwhile. We try to prove to ourselves and others, even to God, over and over again that we’re worth something by the things we do.

Elder Bruce Hafen has written about Nephi’s assertion that “it is by grace that we are saved.” He said, “The Savior’s gift of grace to us is not necessarily limited in time to ‘after’ all we can do. We may receive his grace before, during, and after the time when we expend our own efforts” ( The Broken Heart [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989], 155).

In other words, the grace of an infinitely loving Savior is always available.

Romans 8 has some compelling verses about this idea.

“If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?...Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?...For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s simply a lie that there is anything you need to do to earn God’s love. It’s a lie I’ve told myself. For example, I remember teaching a Sunday school class one time and talking about Church members being a peculiar people and that embracing our peculiarity and behaving in certain ways made us more valuable to the Lord. Let me repeat: there is nothing you can do to make yourself more–or less–valuable to the Lord. I am not more valuable to our Heavenly Parents because I come to Church. My nieces and nephews are not more valuable to our Heavenly Parents because they chose to serve missions. These actions can be an expression of our love for God, but they have nothing to do with God’s love for us. Human behavior doesn’t control the nature of God.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

So if, as Nephi says, we need to believe in Christ, how do we do that? What is it that we need to believe about Him in order not to perish?

I’ll mention two things. First, we need to believe that Christ is the ideal. He is an example of what’s possible for us. Entrepreneur coach Dan Sullivan talks about the ideal being like the sun lighting the way ahead of us to encourage us to do what’s needed to reach our destination. Jesus Christ exemplifies perfect love, courage, learning, self-regulation, patience, compassion, humility, persistence, kindness, accountability, and any other good trait you can think of.

In addition to believing Jesus is the ideal, we also need to believe that He has cleared the path for each of us to move in His direction. You are not stuck. You can get there from here, wherever here is. Just keep going. 

Sometimes we use Christ’s attributes as a way of measuring where we fall short. I am all for being honest with ourselves about ways we can grow, but I think we create a self-fulfilling sense of failure when we continually dwell on the ways we are not measuring up. I recently came across a tool that has helped me not to despair. Here it is:

Always Measure Backward

I learned this tool in Dan Sullivan’s excellent book The GAP and the GAIN. If you want a mindset shift, go get this book. He explains that if we’re constantly dissatisfied no matter how much success we have and feel like we’re far from reaching our highest goals, the problem isn’t with how much or how well we succeed. The problem is that we’re measuring the wrong direction. The only way to measure how far you’ve come is to measure the distance from where you are now back to where you started. We need to count our wins, even the small ones. The more we identify the things we’re getting right, the more we’ll see opportunity for more wins.

Always measure backward.

Elder Cecil Samuelson once said “Occasionally, for well-motivated and highly devoted Latter-day Saints, confusion occurs about the differences between worthiness and perfection. Worthiness and perfection don’t mean the same thing! All of us are “works in process.” We can be worthy while still needing improvement.
Be sure that you do not have higher standards for yourself or others than the Lord has established. Find satisfaction in your progress while acknowledging that perfection may still be distant.” (“What Does It Mean to Be Perfect?” devotional given on March 19, 2002, at the Provo Missionary Training Center)

In the context of the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Parents who are perfectly loving, what does it mean to keep commandments? Here are some verses from John 15 that offer an interpretation.

9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
The commandments, then, are a tool by which we become better at receiving Jesus’ love and sharing it with those around us. And from John 1:

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the [children] sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
The truth is that everyone of us is a beloved child of God, whether or not we go to church, or engage in ministering assignments, or help clean the chapel.

But when I remember God’s infinite love for me, I kinda wanna come to church, reach out to my neighbors and fellow saints, and possibly even clean 20 toilets in one day.

How does it feel when you really take in the fact that God already loves you, and there is nothing you can do to change that? It’s honestly incomprehensible to me, but I can sometimes see glimmers of it. From Ephesians 2

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

I love the definition offered in my ward testimony meeting by [a sister in my ward] Sister Abigail Lerohl that grace is “a sacred form of kindness.” Because of that kindness. Jesus has the power to save anyone who wants to be saved. He has the power to exalt anyone who wants eternal life. D&C 93:17:

17 And he received all power, both in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt in him.

Trust that your desire to become more like Jesus is enough. Your current progress and growth are enough, for now. Keep going, but keep going knowing that Jesus already knows you and loves you, exactly as you are right now.

Keeping the commandments helps us know more about God, which makes it easier to become more like Jesus. Being more like Jesus feels better deep down and in the long run. Maybe you’re like me and you need to remind yourself that you actually have no idea how well someone else is doing at keeping the most fundamental commandments of loving God and loving our neighbor. We can be kinder both to ourselves and to people who make different choices than we do. Jesus is kinder to us and to people who make different choices than we do, even when those people are our children.

Since I was initially asked to talk about striving, I will take a moment to talk about striving. It’s a word that shows up in the temple recommend interview questions, such as:

“Do you strive for moral cleanliness in your thoughts and behavior?”

“Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy, both at home and at church; attend your meetings; prepare for and worthily partake of the sacrament; and live your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?”

“Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?”

I looked up the word “striving” and found a couple of definitions. One is to “struggle or fight vigorously.” I don’t think that’s the one we mean in this context. The other is to “make great efforts to achieve or obtain something.” That one works, but I wonder whether we trip ourselves up sometimes believing our efforts aren’t ever quite great enough. Samuel the Lamanite says things like, “‘striving with unwearied diligence,” and the standard gets raised in our minds such that we are not allowed ever to be weary, as all humans will be.

I like to think of “striving” as “sincerely trying.” The temple recommend interview is a moment of introspection for me to investigate my heart and decide if my desires are to be morally clean in my thoughts and behavior. Am I sincerely trying to keep the Sabbath day holy and live my life in harmony with the gospel? Am I sincerely trying to be honest in all that I do? Even when this introspection brings to mind occasions when I fall short, I can say “yes” to these questions. These are my desires and my efforts. My functioning human brain readily gives its attention to the negative. It takes some effort to pause and pay attention to what has gone well, but we can use our higher processing minds to do just that.

Ultimately, how I answer those temple recommend questions is between me and the Lord. The job of the person in the interview room with me is simply to read me those questions, providing me those moments of self-reflection.

Latter-day Saint author Adam Miller wrote, "Sin uses the law to ask what is deserved. Grace uses the law to ask what is needed" (Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking)

This principle is what Christ teaches in the Parable of the Laborers (Matthew 20:1-15). Christ can make each one of us into a laborer worthy of our hire, whenever we come to Him. At the end of the day, He gives us what we need, which is so much more than what any of us could possibly have earned.

God loves you and there is nothing you can do to change that.