Understanding The Atonement: Is It Grace Or Worthiness?

I’ve been talking with a friend recently who has been struggling to overcome an addiction. Over our conversations, I noticed a trend in how he perceived the way Heavenly Father works with us in these situations. I feel like this idea is a lot more common than I had realized, and applies in so many different ways to every one of us. I myself have thought and felt the same way on separate occasions. We described it differently, but both of our thoughts boiled down to the same thing.

In my circumstance, I was feeling alone and missed feeling Heavenly Father’s love at that time. I described it as being trapped in a deep hole, a pit. And up at the top was Christ, reaching his hand in. The problem is, to reach His hand, I had to climb higher than I thought I was able. I was desperately trying to scramble up the wall of the pit but never making it quite far enough to get help. I felt like all the help that was provided to me to get out was waiting for me at the top. Essentially I felt like I was being told, “I’ll help you get out once you’re out.”

My friend described it similarly. He needed help in his trials, but he knew that to receive the spirit, you need to be worthy. To get help from the Atonement, you need to repent and have faith. But when you have tried time and time again to overcome a sin, it’s easy to see that your attempts at repentance seem fruitless, making you think you can’t qualify for the grace of the Atonement. He was feeling the same way I was. His phrase was “once you’re worthy, then you’ll get the strength/faith to be worthy.”

And on the surface that all makes perfect sense. We are told so often as Latter-day Saints the importance of worthiness and how that applies to receiving the spirit. But I think Satan has skewed the truth behind it and has tried to make us blind to what’s really happening. Because I thought long and hard about how I could feel so wrong about what I considered being a complete truth, that idea contradicts the one truth I know without a doubt and has become a sole point in my faith; God is love. How can a God of love leave us when we’re down and lost? Well, he hasn’t, go figure.

To clear things up, yes, promptings from the Holy Spirit are determined by personal worthiness, but on the wrong end of worthiness, we see things as black and white. Yes, I’m 100% worthy, and no, I’m 0% failing hard. But the Lord sees us a lot different than we do, and values everything we can give, so He sees what’s really happening and helps. He has been where we are, even lower and deeper in the pit than we will ever be. “A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” If there’s anyone who knows how to get out, He does.

The original idea was that we need the spirit to become clean. But if you’re not worthy of having the Spirit, then how could you ever become clean? Well, believe it or not, you still have access to the spirit even when trapped in sin. How, though?

Sure, we do need to be as worthy as we can to enjoy the full blessings of the gospel, like temple attendance, but as long as you seek Christ, you will find the spirit. Take, for example, the way the Spirit works before baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. You can still feel its presence, but it cannot constantly abide with you until you “receive the Holy Ghost” by the laying on of hands. Similarly, we can get help from the spirit when we are trapped in sin. When we desire repentance and do our best to do what we can, then we are blessed. No matter how big or small that effort may be. As you put your faith in making it as far as you can, Christ will provide you the strength to take the next step. And sometimes you will make a mistake. But that’s not the end; you don’t have to start over. Pick yourself up and take that one step again, everything you can give, never too much for you to handle on your own. The spirit will teach you little by little the things that you can do to receive more. “Small efforts sustained over time can produce significant results.” (Elder Devin G. Durrant)

No matter what sin or weakness we find ourselves with, the easiest or the most difficult, we can be free from it through His grace and become even stronger than before, with no exceptions.

“The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened if we truly repent, He has promised that He would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. There are so many of us who are thrashing around, as it were, with feelings of guilt, not knowing quite how to escape. You escape by accepting the Atonement of Christ, and all that was heartache can turn to beauty and love and eternity.” (President Boyd K. Packer)

When in that dark and lonely pit, you will find Christ. The only person to ever feel exactly what you have. And as the Son of God, he overcame it so that you would never have to be alone. He knows every foothold and crevice you can reach to make it out of the pit eventually. And all you have to do is trust Him, trust His love, and never give up.