Do Your Best?

I’m letting you know that my friend who reads the posts before I post them (she’s so nice to do that for me) said that you’ll probably understand it better the second time you read it. It’s a lot to digest. Good luck and enjoy!

😋😘🥰

In institute choir one day, my teacher excitingly exclaimed, “story time!”

I had no idea what to expect, but listened eagerly as she instructed us to turn to Judges in the Old Testament. I was intrigued, because I’m not going to lie, I’m not that familiar with the Old Testament and had no idea what story was in Judges 6-7.

Sister T asked us if any of us had ever heard of Gideon; his name sounded familiar, so I raised my hand a little bit. She got excited and her face lit up as she explained what a fierce and courageous man Gideon was.

If you’re a bible wiz and notice I’m leaving out a detail or saying something that isn’t quite right, I’m sorry. I’m doing this off of memory and obviously I’m going to make mistakes…hehe whoops!

Gideon was the man God sent to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites: a dangerous and rambunctious group of people that didn’t have many morales and were destroying settlements while killing people.

Gideon decided to trust God and got an army together of 32,000 people. THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE! I mean, wow. God saw the 32,000 people gathered to fight and told Gideon, “this army is too big.” Heeding that advice, Gideon made an announcement that if anyone was scared or didn’t want to fight, they should go home.

Following that announcement, 22,000 people left, leaving 10,000 to make up Gideon’s army. God saw the 10,000 warriors and once again said, “this is too big. Take them to the waters and give them a test to decide who shall stay.” (I’m definitely paraphrasing.) See Judges 7:5-7

After this test, 300 of the men chose to lap the water up with their hands to their mouth, and God said, “This is your army.”

Then, following God’s instructions, each man was given a trumpet and an empty pitcher with a lamp inside. Wait what? No weapons?!

Explaining God’s plan, Gideon told the men to blow their trumpets when they heard him play and then shout “the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.” Following this, they were to throw their pitcher on the ground to create a ring of fire.

So, the 300 men spread out, encircled the Midianites’ camp, and followed the guidance of Gideon as they blew their trumpet, shouted the phrase, and threw their pitchers on the ground. Immediately following this, the Midianites woke up: dazed, confused, scared, and begun fighting blindly, killing their own people, for Gideon’s army had run away to safety.

Gideon’s army of 300 men runs from the Midianites to rally more of the children of Israel to help scare the Midianites away. The Midianites retreat and the children of Israel are victorious! Free from bondage at last!

To me, this is proof that He is fighting for us.

Finishing with the story, Sister T testified that God cares about us and will help us with LESS than our best. He didn’t want an army of 32,000 people or even 10,000 people…he chose an army of 300. And for those who aren’t so great at math, let me put this plainly: He wanted one one hundredth of Gideon’s best. 1/100 of Gideon’s best. That’s 1% of what Gideon had to offer.

My teacher (who is AMAZING) happens to have a blog of her own. She shared this story as well, and she probably tells it better than I do…so if you want more information on the story, here’s the link to her post about it:

Click Here to Read Her Telling of This Story 😋

Now to be super cheesy, and perhaps a little cringey, you’re probably wondering why the heck this matters or what connection I made from this. Kyra, what the heck is going on inside that brain of yours?!

Let me tell ya. (I told you it was cheesy!)

If we take this story into account, and apply it to our own lives, doesn’t that mean that we don’t need to be at our best to be enough? What does our best even mean? Maybe we should redefine what our best looks like…

Because maybe…perhaps…possibly…he doesn’t want us at our “best.”

I don’t know about you, but oftentimes people would tell me, “just do your best.” I think they meant to comfort and encourage me, but it also made me feel very stressed.

If I thought about it, my best could be pretty darn great. Not perfect, but very very good. The problem is that doing my “best” is exhausting and emotionally draining.

I met with some people from a crisis hotline many years ago, and they told me not to hold myself up to such a high standard. They advised me to take care of myself and put school second to that. I was shocked. Then they said to “do your best” and I felt disappointed and sad once again. Isn’t my best doing all of my assignments? Isn’t it putting time and effort into each task? Isn’t it going above and beyond? Think about it: our best could be very high quality work.

There are so many examples, but I’m only going to share a few. Hopefully my point still comes across BUT doesn’t stress you out. Hang in the there till the end. 😉

While drawing or coloring, if I accidentally go “outside the lines” then my paper could arguably be said to be “not my best.” I could start again and make it as perfect as humanly possible.

Doing your best in school is a whole other type of ball game. For wouldn’t it be considered your “best” to do all of your assignments and have them completed in their entirety? Wouldn’t it be your “best” to never miss class? Wouldn’t it be your “best” to study hours and hours for a test? Wouldn’t it be your “best” to focus on doing things right the first time?

What about your “best” essay? Is there such a thing? If I’m to do my “best” on an essay, doesn’t that mean that I’m going to revise it over and over again until I am happy with every word? Doesn’t it mean that I am not going to just send in what I have written and hope for a good grade?

*cue tangent*

My friend asked me to look over one of her essays and fix spelling and grammatical errors. I did so, but when she looked at everything she would have to change, (I added a ton of stuff that wasn’t necessary…but I like to write and she doesn’t) she grew overwhelmed and turned it in without changing a single thing. I was slightly irritated and taken aback because I had spent time going over it and adding to it…but she was too stressed to spend more time adding things to make it better.

After it was graded, she let me know that she had gotten 100% on the assignment…without any of my extra details or descriptions…without the perfect grammar…without the transitions and commas and periods to make it flow better. A perfect grade…without the extra eye to help edit and make it better. (Her paper wasn’t bad by any means.)

Wasn’t it in her best interest to take the time to make the changes? Wouldn’t it be her best to make sure she was turning in something that she had put every effort into? Made every change. Added every comma. Varied the sentence structure. Changed words so they didn’t repeat too many times within a paragraph….I mean, isn’t that her best?

*end of tangent*

I like to sleep in because I don’t have class til noon each day. But if I was doing my very best, doesn’t that mean I would get up early in the morning to be proactive and get stuff done? Doesn’t my best mean not to waste time or do anything that’s useless?

Wouldn’t my best be to watch general conference all the day long? Not waste my time with tv shows or movies that don’t serve a higher purpose? Isn’t that my best?! (Now that’s an extreme example 😂)

Hopefully you’ve gotten my point by now. And perhaps you are sitting there, wide-eyed, wondering why the crap I put all of those ideas into your heard. Sorry….but also, welcome to my brain.

Now that we have defined what “your best” has meant in my head for a long time now, I want to express why God doesn’t want us at our best.

Being a human being means being imperfect. It means sleeping in sometimes (or all the time if you’re me). It means BS-ing a paper when you don’t have the mental capacity to edit, revise, and reread it again and again. It means we find enjoyment from media outside of general conference.

Heavenly Father wants us to live a life with balance as we work each day to become something more, something different, something better. Along the way and during the journey, we are meant to be incomplete. That can entail a lot of things, but I think of being broken, being someone who makes mistakes, being someone who gets lost sometimes, being someone who doesn’t know all the answers.

My friend’s essay received 100% full credit…and rightfully so. Even though she didn’t look over my additions/edits, she worked very hard on it and spent a good chunk of time writing it. I’m proud of her, and although I was sad she didn’t add anything I suggested, I’m glad that she didn’t. Why? Because now I have a personal example of why our “best” isn’t needed.

Heavenly Father does not want us to be constantly reaching to be our best if we tire ourselves out and neglect caring for ourselves. Being broken is okay. It’s what makes us human. It’s what makes us strong.

I’ve shared this before but I’m going to share it again: (See The Path of Becoming)

I’ll write it underneath in case you can’t read it in the picture:

I’m also going to bold things I think are important. 
😉

“I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.”

“We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.”

That’s the end of the quote. It’s amazing, isn’t it? The solution to kindness and compassion and forgiveness and healing is to embrace our brokenness. Embrace what makes us who we are. Embrace our humanity.

I hope this is all coming together, but if not, I just want you to know that you are loved today. You are enough. Your best isn’t required. Heavenly Father wants you to grow, and he will help you.

Begin today on one thing you have been wanting to start, to improve upon, to increase your strength, to add to your growth…but please…stop striving for perfection. Stop feeling weighed down by the idea of doing your best.

Effort. That’s what counts. That’s what matters. Jeffrey R. Holland said, “we get credit for trying; even if we don’t always succeed.”