General Conference Teachings

As usual, when I listen to General Conference, I try to identify teachings that help me deal with perfectionistic thinking. Here are three conference messages that stood out to me from earlier this month.

1. Elder Edward Dube — Come unto Christ

Elder Dube’s message is probably the most directly relevant talk in the entire conference for someone dealing with perfectionism. He addresses the mistaken idea that we must first make ourselves good enough before approaching the Savior.

“We do not need to perfect ourselves to come to Christ. We come to Christ to be perfected.”

Elder Dube explains that coming to Christ involves action, surrender, and a willing heart. We don’t have to fix everything ourselves before asking for His help.

Perfectionism often reverses the gospel’s order of operations. We tell ourselves:

– First, I must overcome this weakness; then I can feel close to God.

– First, I must become more disciplined; then I can feel good about myself.

– First, I must stop making mistakes; then I can trust that I am making spiritual progress.

Elder Dube points us in the opposite direction. We come to Christ with our weaknesses, not after we have eliminated them. His grace is part of the process of change, not a reward for completing it. This doesn’t mean that our choices don’t matter or that repentance isn’t necessary. It means that we don’t have to earn the right to seek the help that makes repentance and change possible. A question I might ask myself: Am I trying to overcome my weaknesses through my own willpower before I allow the Savior to help me?

2. Elder Hutch U. Fale — I Am a Child of God

Elder Fale teaches that understanding our Heavenly Father’s love and our identity as His children is essential for our happiness.

“I am a child of God and He loves me.”

He teaches that our Heavenly Father loved us before we were born, loves us today, and will love us tomorrow. That love can give us courage to do our best and humility to turn to Him when we need help.

Perfectionism often attaches our worth to our performance. We may feel valuable when we succeed, when we are obedient, and when we meet expectations. But when we fail, we begin questioning our identity.

Elder Fale invites us to ground our identity in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We can take our shortcomings seriously without defining ourselves by them. And we can repent without concluding that we are bad people. I might ask myself: If I truly believed that Heavenly Father loved me on my worst day as well as my best day, how would I treat myself differently when I fall short?

3. Elder Michael A. Dunn — The Ninety and Ten

Elder Dunn uses an ultramarathon experience to illustrate how the Savior helps us endure burdens and keep moving forward, even when we’re tired and discouraged.

“The Redeemer rescues not by shortening our course but by helping us lengthen our stride.”

Sometimes perfectionists aren’t asking too much of themselves because they are lazy or unwilling to work. They’re already working really hard. Their difficulty is that they believe they must keep pushing hard regardless of exhaustion or personal limitations.

Elder Dunn’s message offers a different understanding of divine help. The Savior doesn’t always remove the challenge or make the journey shorter. He helps us carry it.

This can mean learning to accept our present limitations, asking for help, adjusting our expectations, and taking the next step without needing to feel strong first. For someone who is getting older, experiencing chronic illness, struggling with an addiction, or facing a hard season of life, this message is very meaningful. Faithfulness doesn’t mean we have to pretend that we have unlimited capacity. A question I might ask myself: Where am I trying to carry something alone that the Savior is inviting me to let Him help me carry?

These talks offer answers to some common perfectionistic thoughts.

Perfectionistic thought: “I have to get my life together before I can come to Christ.”

Healthier response: “I come to Christ so He can help change me.” — Elder Dube

Perfectionistic thought: “My mistakes mean I’m not good enough.”

Healthier response: “I am a beloved child of God, even while I am growing.” — Elder Fale

Perfectionistic thought: “I should be able to handle everything myself.”

Healthier response: “The Savior helps me carry burdens I cannot carry alone.” — Elder Dunn

For a person struggling with perfectionism, maybe the most important question is not, “How can I finally become good enough?” It is, “What would change if I trusted Jesus Christ enough to let Him help me right where I am?”

C.S. Lewis on Perfection

I stumbled across a quote by C.S. Lewis that addresses perfection and how the Lord intends to perfect us. This is great!

I find a good many people have been bothered by what I said in the previous chapter about Our Lord’s words, “Be ye perfect.” Some people seem to think this means “Unless you are perfect, I will not help you”; and as we cannot be perfect, then, if He meant that, our position is hopeless. But I do not think He did mean that. I think He meant “The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less: but I will give you nothing less.”

Let me explain. When I was a child I often had toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother—at least, not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this. I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie; if you gave them an inch they took a mile.

Now, if I may put it that way, Our Lord is like the dentists. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of, or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper or drunkenness). Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment.

That is why He warned people to “count the cost” before becoming Christians. “Make no mistake,” He says, “If you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect—until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.”

And yet—this is the other and equally important side of it—this Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty. As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out, every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free manly walk in a grown-up son…. He said, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.”

The practical upshot is this. On the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realise from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And it is very important to realise that.

Here is another way of putting the two sides of the truth. On the one hand we must never imagine that our own unaided efforts can be relied on to carry us even through the next twenty-four hours as “decent” people. If He does not support us, not one of us is safe from some gross sin. On the other hand, no possible degree of holiness or heroism which has ever been recorded of the greatest saints is beyond what He is determined to produce in every one of us in the end. The job will not be completed in this life; but He means to get us as far as possible before death. That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time.

The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods,” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and, in parts, very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001)

The Lord’s work and glory is to exalt me. And He knows how to do his work.

A New Year’s Theme

As I look at setting New Year’s resolutions, which is my MO at this time of year, I typically like to choose a word or phrase as a theme for the coming year. I haven’t settled on this one for sure, but I’m leaning toward “be still.” 

One of my favorite talks from this past October General Conference is the one by Elder L Todd Budge. 

It is interesting to note that the Japanese word for “busy,” isogashii, is made up of a character with two symbols (忙). The one on the left means “heart” or “spirit,” and the one on the right means “death”—suggesting perhaps, that being too busy to nourish our spirits can lead us to die spiritually.

The Lord knew—in this fast-paced world full of distractions and in commotion—that making quality time for Him would be one of the major challenges of our day.

President David O. McKay said: “I think we pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. Meditation is one of the most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord.”

There is a word in Japanese, mui, that, for me, captures this more faith-filled, contemplative sense of what it means to be still. It is comprised of two characters (無為). The one on the left means “nothing” or “nothingness,” and the one on the right means “to do.” Together they mean “non-doing.” Taken literally, the word could be misinterpreted to mean “to do nothing” in the same way “to be still” can be misinterpreted as “not talking or moving.” However, like the phrase “to be still,” it has a higher meaning; for me it is a reminder to slow down and to live with greater spiritual awareness.

God desires that we approach our time with Him with the same kind of heartfelt devotion. When we do so, our worship becomes an expression of our love for Him.

When our focus is less on doing and more on strengthening our covenant connection with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, these sacred moments will be enriched, and we will receive the guidance needed in our personal lives. We, like Martha in the account in Luke, are often “careful and troubled about many things.” However, as we commune with the Lord each day, He will help us to know that which is most needful.

Even the Savior took time from His ministry to be still. The scriptures are replete with examples of the Lord retreating to a solitary place—a mountain, the wilderness, a desert place, or going “a little way off”—to pray to the Father. If Jesus Christ sought quiet time to commune with God and to be strengthened by Him, it would be wise for us to do the same.

As we concentrate our hearts and minds on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and listen to the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost, we will have greater clarity about what is most needful, develop deeper compassion, and find rest and strength in Him.

I’m grateful that I’m retired and have a little more time to pull back from the daily grind and find peace and calm. It’s nice to not feel the expectation of constantly needing to “get it right” but rather, breathe in the stillness. 

God’s Intent Is to Bring You Home

During General Conference, I listen to see who addresses anything pertaining to perfectionism. This time, I chose Elder Kearon’s talk because of the hope it gives for removing barriers to returning to God. It also shows how much God wants us back with Him. I pulled several paragraphs straight from his address: 

My friends, my fellow disciples on the road of mortal life, our Father’s beautiful plan, even His “fabulous” plan, is designed to bring you home, not to keep you out. No one has built a roadblock and stationed someone there to turn you around and send you away. In fact, it is the exact opposite. God is in relentless pursuit of you. He “wants all of His children to choose to return to Him,” and He employs every possible measure to bring you back.

The intent of the Father’s great plan of happiness is your happiness, right here, right now, and in the eternities. It is not to prevent your happiness and cause you instead worry and fear.

The intent of the Father’s plan of redemption is in fact your redemption, your being rescued through the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, freed from the captivity of sin and death. It is not to leave you as you are.

The intent of the Father’s plan of mercy is to extend mercy as you turn back to Him and honour your covenant of fidelity to Him. It is not to deny mercy and inflict pain and sorrow.

The intent of the Father’s plan of salvation is in fact your salvation in the celestial kingdom of glory as you receive “the testimony of Jesus”10 and offer your whole soul to Him.11 It is not to keep you out.

Jesus’s will is the benevolent Father’s will! He wants to make it possible for every last one of His Father’s children to receive the end goal of the plan—eternal life with Them. None is excluded from this divine potential.

If you are prone to worry that you will never measure up, or that the loving reach of Christ’s infinite Atonement mercifully covers everyone else but not you, then you misunderstand. Infinite means infinite. Infinite covers you and those you love.

Nephi explains this beautiful truth: “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”

The Saviour, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is “not willing that any should perish.”

He did not cast away the woman with the issue of blood; He did not recoil from the leper; He did not reject the woman taken in adultery; He did not refuse the penitent—no matter their sin. And He will not refuse you or those you love when you bring to Him your broken hearts and contrite spirits. That is not His intent or His design, nor His plan, purpose, wish, or hope.

No, He does not put up roadblocks and barriers; He removes them. He does not keep you out; He welcomes you in. His entire ministry was a living declaration of this intent.

How could he be more direct? How could I dispute the Lord’s goodness and love? And Elder Kearon’s fun British accent adds to the sweetness of the truths he shares.