In my second-year high school French class, my teacher told us that every day, we were going to write a paragraph by ourselves in French as our daily warmup.
My French skills were dismal at best, but each morning, I would pull out my English-French dictionary and write the best paragraph that I could.
After a couple weeks, she asked for us to turn in our notebooks. The next day, she handed them back.
I opened mine and found tons of red marks.
And then I realized… She had underlined everything I had written CORRECTLY in red pen.
She had also responded in very simple French to each entry with encouraging words or a personal connection.
I felt so empowered!
She was pointing out everything that I was doing right.
My accuracy was definitely below 50%.
But I suddenly felt that my teacher really wanted me to learn French.
She was on my side.
It’s a silly little story, but it’s stayed in my mind for over a decade.
She cared about me, she was on my side, and she made me want to learn French even better.
On a much grander, and much more serious scale, this is what our Savior does.
“Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him”. D&C 45:3
He is looking for every single thing that we do correctly.
Every righteous desire. (Even if your actions didn’t totally line up.)
Every righteous effort. (Even if the results didn’t turn out the way we wanted.)
Every righteous action. (Even if someone else took offense.)
He is PLEADING and ADVOCATING.
For you.
He is underlining in red every single good thought, effort, action, ordinance, sacrifice, service…
He is giving you the benefit of the doubt even when the rest doesn’t quite make sense.
And the irony in it is this:
Christ being on my side and looking for every good thing that I’ve done, doesn’t make me feel like I’ve got a free pass.
In my French class, I suddenly had a natural curiosity to learn French even better so that I could communicate more clearly.
And this knowledge about my Savior motivates me to add even more goodness in my life.
Because He is my personal advocate.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
4 Responses
What a wonderful analogy! Thank you for sharing
You’re welcome! ????
I love your comments. Sometimes I feel that following Christ, choosing the right, growing my testimony, reading the scriptures, while all excellent things to do, are a bit more like work some days. The ideas you outlined make it seem less like homework and more effortless. Thanks!
Such a great way to look at it!