My mind has been hurting as I have tried to understand what kind of test is mortal life? We know that we chose to come to Earth because we accepted God's plan (however strong or weak our conviction was). Did we know how we would be tested? Did Heavenly Father teach us all the right answers in pre-mortal existence classes and say, "Okay, you are ready to take the final now. Make sure you get ALL the answers right so you can come back and see me." Shoot, if this life were a multiple choice test the options to choose from would be from a to z times infinity for EACH question. Somehow I don't think this would be a very fair test. I also don't see how it would be a matching test. With every life circumstance there is no one-to-one ratio for the correct response. The Lord deals with our hearts and you and I cannot begin to understand how to score the answers of the heart.
Our Earth final is similar to this; we all have handicaps. Some of us suffer from spiritual dyslexia where our moral-right-and-wrong compass gets turned around and we choose poorly because we couldn't tell the difference between the two. Others, poor spiritual working memory. We know we have to read our scriptures daily, say our prayers always, feed the sick, clothe the naked, strengthen others by being a missionary, do our genealogy work, write in our journals, treat others with kindness... The list goes on forever. There are some that seem to manage it all. You know who I am talking about, the spiritual giants that do it all with a smile on their face. We are amazed at these people, and yet, we are not all meant to be the same in this life. So, there are those that can only manage to perfect a few of these skills at a time. So what! We all are handicapped, even the ones that seem to manage.
The mere fact that we are on Earth handicaps us because of our natural/carnal bodies. We are tempted by things of the flesh and that impedes our ability to make the right choices. Fortunately, we are all provided with a spiritual accommodation. (And here's where my analogy comes full circle.) God, our Father, has provided the ultimate accommodation, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He lets us correct our answers when we ask him for help. It's called repentance. It's like a take home test where you can take your tutor home with you and you work on the answers together. Of course, not everyone takes advantage of this. It could be pride or ignorance, or whatever. Regardless, we all need His help to make the right choices and to fix the ones we get wrong.
As I have thought about this idea, I believe that life is a test. It is an essay test where we can make revisions with the Lord's help, through repentance. Our responses are truly subjective and only God, our Father, can make the final judgement. He knows what is in our hearts and ultimately that is what he wants to see. What did we do with the knowledge we had prior to this final test and how did we apply it? Did we learn from our mistakes? Did our responses demonstrate that we chose Him over whatever worldly fad or socially acceptable norm there was at time we lived? I know the scriptures and seeking the Lord's guidance is the only way to know the answers, so, I suppose, being conference weekend I will see what answers I can glean. As always, your thoughts are welcome. Thanks in advance for your input.
Well written my son. I like it a lot. I look forward to reading your first book.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Micah. I love the reminder that we all have our handicaps, and have specially-tailored accommodations available. Our judge is perfect and knows us perfectly. So, the results will be perfectly fair- through His justice, love, and mercy.
ReplyDeleteA thought from Sheri Dew: Indeed, this life is a test. It is a test of many things—of our convictions and priorities, our faith and our faithfulness, our patience and our resilience, and in the end, our ultimate desires. Yet there are times when the vision and hope of a Big Finish are dimmed by immediate demands, days when one might wish for a mortal exam that was a little more manageable.
Thankfully, our experience here is an open-book test. We know why we’re here, and we have from prophets ancient and modern an extensive set of instructions...Life is a test. But divine assistance is available to help us successfully complete this most critical examination.(This is a Test, Ensign, July 2000)
I feel blessed to be part of such a spiritually in tuned family. This blog was so timely for me as I just finished the DLPT (Defence Language Proficiency Test). It took me about 5 hours to complete. It was very challenging. But it's nothing like this earth test. In this earth test one gets way more challenging problems. On the other hand you also get way more enjoyable parts of the test. These are the parts of the test where it seems like you know everything and you just blow through the questions. I think these come more often when you are using the tools Teacher gave us. Thanks for your post micah.
ReplyDelete@dad- if I ever have enough stuff to actually write a book on I may actually do it. Sounds fun, and hard.
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@az - I love the quote. chelsea and I talked about how we are tested more on basic principles like faith and it is ultimately an individual test where he focuses on our heart. I was hoping for some good general authority's thoughts on that very idea, thank you.
@shane- I'm glad it got you thinking. I think you're right, the questions are a lot harder but when you are using your tutor effectively it works out just fine. sounds like what you're saying is if we start breezing thru questions then maybe we have the holy ghost helping us. Good gauge. it also puts it into perspective what we think are hard circumstances.
@dad- if I ever have enough stuff to actually write a book on I may actually do it. Sounds fun, and hard.
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@az - I love the quote. chelsea and I talked about how we are tested more on basic principles like faith and it is ultimately an individual test where he focuses on our heart. I was hoping for some good general authority's thoughts on that very idea, thank you.
@shane- I'm glad it got you thinking. I think you're right, the questions are a lot harder but when you are using your tutor effectively it works out just fine. sounds like what you're saying is if we start breezing thru questions then maybe we have the holy ghost helping us. Good gauge. it also puts it into perspective what we think are hard circumstances.
So when are you planning to post again?
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