Making Exceptions

Lately my four-year-old has been learning to read, and in a Sacrament meeting recently he was trying to read the words of a little book with alphabetical gospel terms.  He got to the word “kneeling” and asked me what it was.  When I told him, he was perplexed and insisted that I couldn’t be correct.  He said something to the effect of, “But kneeling starts with an ‘n’ sound—this word starts with a ‘k’ Dad!”  I did my best to explain in whispers to him about the silent k without disrupting Sacrament Meeting too much, but to no avail.  He knew what he had learned in preschool, and k does not make an n sound, so I couldn’t be right.  As I thought about this experience I reflected on how hard it is to teach exceptions to general rules (and the English language is one exception after the other), especially when teaching children. 

The same is certainly true when it comes to gospel living.  President Monson once told a story about Clayton Christensen who refused to compromise and play basketball on Sunday even though it was the championship game at Oxford and he was a key player.  President Monson commented, “It would have been very easy to have said, ‘You know, in general, keeping the Sabbath day holy is the right commandment, but in my particular extenuating circumstance, it’s okay, just this once, if I don’t do it.’ However, he says his entire life has turned out to be an unending stream of extenuating circumstances, and had he crossed the line just that once, then the next time something came up that was so demanding and critical, it would have been so much easier to cross the line again. The lesson he learned is that it is easier to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time than it is 98 percent of the time.”  The Savior of course was the perfect example of not making exceptions.  He declared, speaking of His Father, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).  Christ fulfilled perfectly the commands of His Father in everything He did, even to the point of giving His life for the sins of all mankind because that was the will of the Father.  He also declared, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19).  Joseph Smith’s experience with the lost 116 pages with Martin Harris—when he had tried to get an exception from the Lord’s initial response of “No” to the request to show the manuscript—taught him to not seek exceptions for the Lord’s commands.  He declared once in Kirtland, “As my life consisted of activity and unyielding exertions, I made this my rule: When the Lord commands, do it.”

                   In the Book of Mormon Nephi was another who sought no exceptions for himself.  When the others “did begin to murmur exceedingly, because of their sufferings and afflictions in the wilderness,” Nephi would not go against His God; instead he recorded, “I, Nephi, did speak much unto my brethren, because they had hardened their hearts again, even unto complaining against the Lord their God” (1 Nephi 16:20, 22). When he was tied up on the boat he similarly refused to murmur against the Lord despite his terrible condition: “I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:16).  He did not see these extenuating circumstances as an excuse to complain and speak against the Lord.  He later declared the importance of obedience at the end of the 1^st book of Nephi: “Wherefore, if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day” (1 Nephi 22:31).  Then at the end of his 2^nd book he affirmed his devotion to this principle: “For what I seal on earth, shall be brought against you at the judgment bar; for thus hath the Lord commanded me, and I must obey” (2 Nephi 33:15).   His final words to us were a declaration that he would obey the Lord.  Though we of course will make many mistakes and cannot be perfectly obedient in this life, we can strive diligently to have Nephi’s and Joseph’s and the Savior’s devotion to following the commandments of God.  And besides, when we never make exceptions for ourselves, our actions are a lot easier to explain to our children—especially to a four-year-old.