You're probably doing better than you think

After my last post that quoted Nephi's lament about his own inadequacies, I read Falling to Heaven, by James L. Ferrell, who also wrote the wonderful The Peacegiver.  Ferrell points out that several other prophets make similar, er, confessions in the scriptures.  He quotes Alma laying out his past sins to his sons, Amulek's confession to his neighbors that he knew but ignored the hand of the Lord in his own life, and Joseph Smith for his.

My favorite that Ferrell brought up was the Apostle Paul.  I hadn't remembered this from him in his epistle to the Romans, chapter 7:

18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

Oh, how many times have I thought that?!  I know what's good, but I can't figure out how to do it. What I know I should and want to do, I don't do, but that which I know I shouldn't do, I do anyway.


And so does everybody else.  So did Paul.  So did Nephi, and Alma, and Joseph Smith, and our prophets and apostles today.  And you.


And even when we can temper our guilt with the fact that "no one need suppose me guilty of any malignant sins" (Joseph Smith—History 1:28), we still know that we fall utterly short of what we want and what God requires.


But I think it's a mistake of arrogance to allow our sinful nature to make us feel unworthy of blessings or goodness.  True humility would realize that we cannot do what is required of us, so we rely wholly on the power of the Atonement to make up the difference.  It isn't humble to compare ourselves to perfection, which is unattainable.

So our own laments should sound an awful lot like those of the prophets above, maybe even sounding very hard on ourselves, as we groan at our own wretchedness.  Then we rejoice in the goodness of the Lord who covers whatever gap we have.