The Perfect Experiment

There was a time in my life I thought I had to be perfect.... why? Let me tell you.

As you all know, I believe in a Heavenly Father, and his son Jesus Christ. Because I believe in them I study the scriptures and pray to come closer to them. In my studies I came across all of THESE scriptures.

One that really stuck with me was 2 Corinthians 13:11

"... Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the love of God and peace will be with you" 

After reading this scripture I had this theory that I had to be perfect. It seemed natural to develop this hypothesis:

 If I was perfect, then I was good enough for God's love, and I could have peace in life. 

This sounds like a pretty sound hypothesis to me. And everyone knows that when you develop a good hypothesis, the next step is to test it. .... So that is exactly what I did. 

I did pretty well for a few minutes. Maybe even hours. I was pretty darn perfect. I think I might have even made it to the end of the night. Nice. Then the next morning I slept through my alarm. 

AHHH, well I guess that I blew it for today, so I will start again tomorrow. The next day I made it to the mirror and took a look..... ZIT? WHAT???....Well, I guess I will wait a few days until that clears up. In a few days I would start again and then boom.... Only 98% on my math test? AHHH, come on! Again - I am going to be the very best violinist ever... I played the wrong note on the last page of that 20 page concerto???? Seriously? You have really outdone yourself this time! I AM HORRIBLE. I keep being sooo imperfect. No one can love me. I don't even love me.

.. Basically this all continued for the next 10 years. Sometimes I would do really well for a while. I could get the best grades. I could graduate a year early. I could be in the school musical and have a job and be on the academic committee and take violin lessons, all without breaking a sweat. and then I would make a mistake so I would have to start over. I found I was starting over and over and over again every day, sometimes even several times a day. Not only that, but I found that the more I was starting over and being imperfect, the less I felt loved by God, and the more unhappy and unsettled I felt in life. 

Based on the data, I had proved my hypothesis... the only way God could love me was if I were perfect.... and according to my experimentation, I was not perfect. Therefore, God could not love me because I was not perfect. Right?

WRONG!

As far as I can tell, there are two methods of achieving perfection:

Option number one- Never ever ever make any kind of mistake. No bad thoughts. Straight A's. Complete charity for everyone, all the time. Never speeding. Always making the right choices. 

What I didn't realize when I began this experiment is that I had messed up being perfect a long time ago, and option number one was no longer an option at all. 

Option Number two- Try really hard to be the best that I can be, but then believing that there is a way that all the mistakes I make in the process can be forgiven, and not only that, undone and gone from my past. 

There was one variable that I had missed when this experiment began. I forgot about the Atonement of my Savior Jesus Christ- the greatest symbol of God's love for me. Yes, I loved the Lord through this all, but I denied him from helping me UNTIL I was perfect on my own. And it was going to be a long time until that happened. BUT....

If I let the Atonement of Jesus Christ be a part of my experiment, then I would be accepting God's love for me. It is as simple as that. The Love was always there, but I wasn't accepting it because I was trying to be perfect on my own. 

If I try my best to be perfect and have faith that the Atonement of Jesus Christ will make up for everything else, then I will be perfect. If I am perfect through Christ, then I will feel God's love and peace.