“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23). Sometimes God seems to be setting us up for failure. If God really cared about Adam and Eve not eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then He should have made the tree much, much less accessible, maybe, I don't know, by placing an angel with a flaming sword to guard against it. At the very least, He could have done a sweep of the garden into which He was placing His naive and inexperienced children to make sure that there were no snakes with evil intent lurking about. On the other hand, if Adam and Eve eating the fruit was part of the plan all along, then why did God command them not to eat it? Why does God give us commandments that are impossible to follow? When Christ tells us that He wants us to be perfect, and He knows full well that we will never be perfect in this lifetime, then what is the point of setting such an impossibly high standard? Could it be that 100% perfect obedience is not the goal? We all fall short of the glory of God. We all fail to be obedient in all things, all the time. But there is value in setting a standard of perfection, even if that standard is forever out of reach. For one thing, perfection is not a solo effort. If perfection were possible only through our own efforts, then we would have no need for a Savior. If life were just an endless series of success with no setbacks, we would have no reason to develop faith, humility, or compassion for those who were not blessed with as many gifts and successes as we were. When we have to return to the Savior after yet another failure, He is not disappointed that we fell, He is overjoyed that we still have not given up on Him or on ourselves. And that is the second reason why it is so important that God commands us to be perfect, even when we are incapable of doing so. If God only commanded us to be good, then as soon as we became good, we might stop striving for improvement. But, if at the end of every single one of our efforts is the encouragement that we can be better still, then we will never stop trying to improve. If God limited His standard to what we ourselves or the world at large considers a reasonable and achievable level, then we would barely even scratch the surface of our true potential. God’s ambition for us is to give us everything that He has, even worlds without end. The only way that He can prepare us is by commanding us to be perfect. Yes, we will fall short. Every. Single. Time. But the more and more we keep leaping to reach perfection, the stronger and stronger we will become. After years and decades of trying and failing to be perfect, we will be capable of many things that would have seemed just as impossible when we were first starting out as the forever out of reach standard of perfection. I hope we will all have faith enough to see that every fall we experience is not a setback but just one more step closer to the glory of God.
