Our Divine Potential

    I look at nature and I am amazed at how balanced it is.  The life cycles of the various food pyramids feed each other and keep each other in check. It speaks to me of perfect, omniscient creation. It's not until humans involve themselves, directly or not, that things frequently fall out of harmony. And I think that speaks to the reality that humans are something more than just animal. 

    We certainly have a great deal of commonality with animals. We share quite a bit of DNA. The basic components that create us are pretty consistent across the board, at least for vertebrates. We have most of the same organs in quite similar placement, same general large bones, although the specific layout varies a bit. We share a lot of basic brain chemistry and instincts. Humans are animals, but we aren't just animals.

    Humans aren't just animals because no other animal has the ability to both create and destroy on the scale of magnitude that humanity does. We build civilizations, cities, technologies, homes, families, and on the other hand we destroy those same things, often with those very things we created. That power, that ability to both create and destroy is proof to me of humanity's divine heritage and potential. 

    I believe that we are all children of God, spiritual children that are loved by Him and sent here to Earth on a preparatory mission to become like Him. Our Heavenly Father wants us to succeed in that endeavor. He provides us commandments and guidance to help us learn to control ourselves and that spark of divinity within ourselves. We have to magnify the godliness within us, not our selfish, natural man tendencies. Because if we are unable to govern our own urges and behaviors, how could we aspire to the governance of God?  We can't just give in to our base, emotional urges if we want to inherit the fulness of our divine birthright. 

    And sure a birthright by name seems like something we should receive regardless of our own actions, but it is possible to reject a birthright, especially if you place higher value on something else. For Esau it was a mess of pottage (Genesis 25:29-34), for David it was Uriah's wife (2 Samuel 11). In both cases it was an issue of immediate gratification to a physical want, not to say that is always the case, but it certainly seems a common thread for people to sacrifice their spirituality for sake of some temporal desire being gratified. 

    Jesus speaks directly to this issue when He tells his disciples "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. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?... But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:24-25, 33).

    It can be hard to keep spiritually consistent, especially in this day and age when there are so many distractions and demands on our time. We have access to so much through the internet, especially on our phones, but the reverse is true in the fact that the world has access to us through those same devices. And a lot of what is out there isn't good. Still, Christ said, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). So we keep the faith and carry on as best we can, striving imperfectly in this life to attain through the grace of Jesus the full potential of our divine heritage, which is to "be...perfect, even as [our] Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).