Clinging and Piano Keyboards

          Up to this point I haven't had much difficulty in coming up with topics to blog about.  It seems like God has had so much to teach me on such a consistent basis that there is no end to the subjects that feel fresh and new to me.  This week, however, it hasn't come as easily as before.  I don't think it's because I'm suddenly less in sync with the Spirit.  In fact, I think it's a positive sign.

         There is a certain atmosphere of accomplishment I call the "maxed out" feeling.  It typically comes when I've just finished hitting my stride in some aspect of my life, such as a job, a life situation, and even and especially a particular spiritual perspective on life.  The Lord is constantly mixing things up and making things interesting.  He has a way of causing pillars of our lives that we previously thought were as constant as gravity to crumble to Pixie Stix powder.  When the Lord is actively involved, we often reach a point when, although we haven't learned everything we could possibly from a situation, the new information and experiences we would get from maintaining the status quo wouldn't be nearly as effective as it had been in the past.  That is the time for change.

          The descriptive effectiveness of the phrase "maxed out"  is limited because it implies some kind of finite barrier that we hit in our learning that completely cuts off our upper progress.  To the best of my understanding, such a barrier only exists among Satan's third of heaven and the sons of perdition.  In contrast, the "maxed out" feeling comes when our progress reaches a peak and begins to slow down.

          Oftentimes we are so comfortable in our present paradigm that we try to cling too hard to where we are or how we think because it is familiar to us.  This frequently happens in those moments when we think we have found the most important principle of the Gospel.  Said Elder Packer:

          "The gospel might be likened to the keyboard of a piano—a full keyboard with a selection of keys on which one who is trained can play a variety without limits... How shortsighted it is, then, to choose a single key and endlessly tap out the monotony of a single note, or even two or three notes, when the full keyboard of limitless harmony can be played." 

          On another occasion he said:  "Some members of the Church who should know better pick out a hobby key or two and tap them incessantly, to the irritation of those around them. They can dull their own spiritual sensitivities. They lose track that there is a fulness of the gospel, . . . [which they reject] in preference to a favorite note. This becomes exaggerated and distorted, leading them away into apostasy." 

          I think that might be my favorite quote by Elder Packer.  Oftentimes I rediscover a new spiritual note or combination of notes that I haven't heard in quite the same way before.  I get so excited that I set aside what I have been working on so I can practice hitting those notes just right.  While I'm never going to be absolutely perfect at playing them, and although a certain amount of practice is necessary to be proficient, there comes a point in time when I've gotten good enough at hitting those notes that continuing to play the same thing over and over again would cross the line from productive to irritating. 

          This doesn't mean that I should never play those notes again, or that I won't find something later on that will make them better, it just means that I need to see those notes for what they are:  a single measure in the symphony God is composing for my life.  I need to let those notes fall into their appropriate place in my life.  I should ever appreciate them but never cling to them.  I should recognize that God has an endless supply of measures for me to receive, cherish, and learn from, of which those notes are but a single glittering gem.  I know all that.

          Then why is it so hard?

          It's hard because we come to love those notes so much.  They become a part of who we are.  We want to stand by them and be loyal to them at all hazards, to tell everyone about them.  To paint murals and tell stories and write blog posts about them, not realizing that the time may come when it would be better for us to let them slip from our tightly clenched grasps and be placed a box in the corner of our hearts, to be treasured on a different day.

          Wherever you are in your eternal progression, when God doesn't hand you the topic He wants you to write about that week on a silver platter and you realize that He is beginning to work with you slightly differently from how He has in the past, let your love of the Lord propel you onward toward the next gleaming sunrise.  The one painted in the sky by your Father just for you.  The one just around the bend.