Missing the Mark

Me and a friend got into a discussion last night about the society that exists in a land with so many LDS people--about how sometimes we set up fences to prevent us from falling into the scary chasms of the deep. Fences that sometimes are set way farther back than they need to be. These fences tend to chase away people who feel like they are being judged. Now, it is their fault for getting offended, and that is a completely different story. Anyway, I'll give some examples.

For one, in order to be "nice", I think as Latter-day Saints we are somewhat afraid to be honest. We are afraid of offending, afraid of causing contention, afraid of what might happen. Now, if our purpose is to cause contention, that is completely inappropriate as well. However, I believe we also need to be real people, and not all this superficial nice stuff.

I'll give another example: wearing Sunday clothes all day long on Sunday. This is not an inappropriate thing, however, I don't believe that the Lord looks down on us if we change into a pair of jeans. I do feel like our hearts and minds should be focused on the Sabbath day, and I myself often just keep my skirt on because it helps me to remember. But lately I have noticed that for me it has almost become a "uh oh, if I don't, certain people will think I am not keeping the Sabbath day holy".....as soon as I started realizing how my intentions had changed, I changed into my jeans again--and guess what? I still felt like I was keeping the Sabbath day holy. And since mostly everyone in my ward also wears jeans, I actually noticed more people talking to me at Ward Prayer...odd, but maybe they felt like I wasn't judging them. (which I wasn't in the first place, but you know how that goes...not to say we should lower our standards so other people don't feel judged, by all means)

The whole heart of our religion is Christ. We are supposed to focus all we do on Him--our motivations, our actions, etc. I believe that no matter what point in life we are at--our lowest low or our most righteous high (and sometimes over-shooting the mark and feeling we are more righteous than other people because our fences are back farther than theirs), the Lord knows our hearts, and He is constantly trying to pull us back to Him and remind us what really matters most. I am grateful for this friend in that he reminded me that Christ loves each one of us more than we realize, and that is the reason why we should all treat everyone as He would.