Today’s Reading: Mosiah 13:7-35
28 And moreover, I say unto you, that salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses.
My husband almost didn’t marry me. At the close of spring semester, some four or five teenage skateboarders had rolled onto my turf at the BYU residence halls. As a resident assistant and former BYU traffic cop with a mandate to enforce the rules, I knew what I needed to do. I marched out there and asked them to walk their skateboards off campus! My fiancee had come over to help me move out and instead imagined himself having to defend my commitment to the rules. He froze in disbelief–what was he getting himself into with this woman?
In his view, I chose the letter of the law over the spirit of the law with a couple of joy riders in an empty parking lot between semesters. We had fallen in love because of our mutual passion for studying and teaching the gospel as seminary teachers. Suddenly, it became more apparent just how far apart we were in our perspective on living that gospel.
Oh the rules! I loved rules so much I became a lawyer. But there is a difference between the rules that inflict a “to do” and “not do” list and those that enable me to keep covenants so I can access the atonement. I think two thousand years ago you might have called me a Pharisee–one of those people in Christ’s time who missed the mark by really reveling in their long list of rules to live the law of Moses by. However, the law of Moses could not justify the Pharisees, the law only pointed them to where justification was found…in the atonement of Christ [i]. I had yet to learn how to allow the beauty of the atonement balance my love for rules.
But give me a chance.
Pablo Picasso is attributed to saying, “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” My fiancee and I had both become gospel pros but I had yet to learn how to live the gospel with the beauty of an artist. I knew he was the someone I needed to help me remember that “salvation doth not come by the law alone” [ii]. I needed him to balance me out and show me the artist’s way of gospel living. After all, isn’t that why Heavenly Father sent his son? So we could all see the gospel as more than a set of rules, but instead, as a beautiful work of art?
This Saturday we will celebrate our eighteenth wedding anniversary and we are still working at intertwining our perspectives. We still work on finding that sweet spot between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, but we work on it together because going too far to either extreme also isn’t right.
Together, we learn and study the principles but we try to focus on the art of keeping the Sabbath day holy, repenting, visiting and home teaching, serving in our callings, and nurturing our children.
Together, we try to focus on the beauty of the Savior’s atonement that makes every Christian act one of consecrating worship rather than a checklist.
Together, we try to “learn the rules” so well, and love them so much, that we feel the Spirit teaching us how to live them “like an artist.”
So go ahead my young skateboarding friends. The parking lot is empty, it is between semesters, and I just might finally admit there is a time and place that your kick-flip trick could be a work of art, not just against the rules!
This week in Howard W. Hunter: Chapter 9: The Law of Tithing
I was born and raised in Alberta, Canada and California and promised every childhood friend I would never raise my family in Utah…until I fell in love with the most amazing fourth generation Orem boy. Now we are raising our kids in the house he grew up in and we love it. I am an estate planning attorney and marriage educator but I really want to be better at those half-baked talents like speaking Spanish, playing the piano, and making dinner every night! Read more about me at mormon.org