Let’s Make A Deal!

Everything is out there. Every philosophy, every desire, and every need. Every dream I have ever had can be fulfilled. I can be, or do, or have anything I want. There are no limits. I am not bound by anything. There are no rules. I can go anywhere. 

I have been reading a book by a woman who divorced her husband to marry another woman, who says she feels right for the first time; she has obeyed her inner voice and is now fulfilling her destiny. She has everything she wants, now. She is “Untamed” and has become who she really is inside. She is wild, letting her natural woman be her guide. She likens it to a cheetah in the zoo who needs to be out in the wild and “be a cheetah,” instead of being caged and following a dog, running behind a jeep after a stuffed rabbit. Find out who you are, and become that, not what others say you should be. She feels perfect just the way she is, and has quit trying to fit into a world of “shoulds” laid down by a patriarchal society. The book is great in so many ways, but I feel few will recognize that she gave up the future for the present. 

Life is like a game show. Monty Hall goes to a member of the audience and says, “Let’s Make a Deal!” “I will give you this brand new washer and dryer set, or, you can trade it in for what’s behind the curtain. There is a decision to be made. I don't know what’s behind the curtain. It could be a new car, or a goat. Tough decision. Do I keep what I have, or do I give it up for the possibility of something better?

In my life, I am constantly in this dilemma. If I make a sacrifice, I never know what I’m getting! I go to college, but don’t know if I will get the job I want. When I married, I didn’t know what my spouse would decide to do. When we decided to have children, we didn’t know what our children would be like. I just never know at the outset, the end result of my commitment. That’s the deal -- I give up something I have, that I like, for something that I can’t see or know, but I’m told it’s better than what I have.

Either way, it’s a sacrifice. I can sacrifice my future for my present, or vice-versa. When I make a choice to do something, I automatically choose not to do anything else. When I make a sacrifice, it’s gone forever. I can only move forward with what I have. There are only three choices I have with any deal I make: I can keep it and hate it (I didn’t sign up for this!), I can keep it and love it, or I can give it up for another unknown. The deals never end -- until the end.

While I love the concept in the book of being myself instead of what my parents, society, church, or other people think I “should” be, I think it’s short-sighted to only become what I want, not knowing the possibilities. Being “true to myself” seems like giving in to the desires of the flesh, and ignoring the eternal possibilities. There are two parts of me, the natural man of flesh, and the spiritual, or eternal, being. The book is about becoming the “natural man.”

For the natural man is an enemy to God... (Mosiah 3:19)

There is a war going on inside of me between that which is spiritual, and that which is temporal. The temporal is represented by the body and my immediate needs, wants, and desires of the flesh. The spiritual is represented by the spirit and it’s eternal needs. My spirit needs to connect with God, and all that is eternal. I need a soul, a complete body and spirit together, unified, one. However, they are at odds. If I choose one, I must give up the other. I cannot have both. The only real decision I make in life is how I’m going to integrate. I need integrity, which brings peace. 

No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. (3 Nephi 13:24)

In being my natural self, I connect with my body on its terms. I obey my natural instincts and become wild and untamed. I have to give up the spiritual to take on the desires of the flesh as a way of integration, the spirit becoming subject to the body. I have a soul -- the body and spirit are one. It feels so good to be integrated. It feels so right. It feels like I have integrity for the first time. I’m no longer divided inside myself. I have peace. I have integrity. The war is over. I have a real connection inside, and I don’t need an outside connection. It’s all about me. I’m whole. My flesh has won the war, and, don’t you know? The good guys always win! Always. Yes, it’s real, but it’s temporary. The flesh will not go with me. Everything in the world will go away -- it all ends, sooner or later.

So, in “being myself” I lose what I could have had because I never find out that there is so much more -- SO MUCH MORE! By choosing the flesh I give up eternity. It’s like deciding to remain a caterpillar and not making a cocoon to become a butterfly. I feel like the book is saying, “Be the caterpillar you are! Don’t sacrifice your life in a cocoon!” The caterpillar is real, but if it doesn’t make the sacrifice of itself, it will never know what it’s like to fly. That’s the deal: You can keep what you have, or you can give it up for something better that you can’t know until you decide.

Faith is the basis of all eternal decisions.

Life on the ground can seem good as long as I’m getting what I want, but then I don’t learn. I don’t become more than I am. I don’t need faith to remain a caterpillar -- I already experience that. Faith is giving up what I know for a promise of something better.

And verily I say unto thee that thou shalt lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better. (Doctrine and Covenants 25:10)

I don’t even know what “a better” world looks like.  I don’t even know what my potential is. I can’t even fathom what I could become. I can’t have goals because I don’t know the possibilities. 

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)

The sacrifice is faith -- faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, trust in God, patience in suffering, and hope for a better world. He is the only hope of integration of the soul by the spirit. Through Him my spirit is in charge. It’s the opposite of being wild and untamed, the body becomes subject to the spirit.

And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation... (Mosiah 15:5)

He tells me what to do: follow Him, and do what He did. 

And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning. (3 Nephi 11:11)

All God asks is everything of the flesh.

“a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” (Joseph Smith)

Verily I say unto you, all among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me. (Doctrine and Covenants 97:8)

Becoming the caterpillar that I already am only keeps me on the ground, in the mud; I don’t get to fly. The Monarch butterfly can go all over North America - from Mexico to Canada, and all over the United States! She is the Mariposa Reina, the queen, flying thousands of miles every year. Why would I want to continue to live and die a caterpillar -- even if I can be the best caterpillar in the world? No, I will make the sacrifice and let my own world die. I will gladly go into the chrysalis and give up all I know of crawling on the ground so I can be so much more. That’s the deal. It’s my pie-in-the-sky deal that I will always make, because I want more. I want to fly! 

I’ve been there. I have been where the author was, and I made a different decision. I was presented with everything I wanted in life and could have had all my desires fulfilled. I could have given up eternal things for temporal things and become integrated by the flesh. But, I made the other choice. Instead of choosing the body, I chose the spirit. I still have an integrated soul. I have peace. I have integrity, and all that goes with it. The war is over, and my spirit won, instead of my body. The good guys always win! God won instead of the devil. The eternal won over the temporal. I have overcome the world. I am a spiritual being. There is no anchor to hold me to the Earth. I’m no longer tempted by anything, or anyone, in the world. I reject everything temporary. I “have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” (Mosiah 5:2)

I made a good deal. It’s like I gave up a bottle of fine wine for a mansion on the coast. There is no comparison. The bottle may be consumed in minutes, and it’s gone, but the mansion is forever. I have not received my mansion, but I trust in the Lord that His promises are fulfilled. What a great deal! Monty would be so excited! I gave up the temporal for the eternal. 

The deal I made with God is real. It is a real choice. It is the only choice, ultimately. I can keep what I have in the world, or I can trade it in for something else hidden away behind the veil. I have to choose first. The Lord tells me it’s better. I believe. I take a chance. My faith is taking the chance and giving up the wild, the known, the world, comforts, and everything of the flesh. I always go for the deal. I never want to stay with what I have -- I want more. The sacrifice allows me to get what I really want -- Eternal Life! That’s flying! I trade in the physical, temporal, and immediate, for that which is spiritual, eternal, and distant. That’s the deal. In His own time, and in His own way, the Lord comes to everyone on the Earth and says, “Let’s make a deal!”