A Great Goal that Requires Sacrifice

"To sacrifice is to give up something valuable or precious, often with the intent of accomplishing a greater purpose or goal" - lds.org

I have a friend that left the church because of issues with homosexuality. After some discussions, she said it comes down to fairness. "It just isn't fair that God would endorse some marriages and condemn others." Then she said, it would be like asking you to break up with your boyfriend while others don't have to. It isn't fair.

I thought about this a lot after our conversation and came to the conclusion that, "yea. it isn't fair but it is right." It seems contradictory at first since God is supposed to be just and right. Yet, if you think about it, this is no different from any other law.

One could say: it's not fair. My friends wants to drink juice and that's okay but I want to drink wine and that's not okay.

Or perhaps, you'd say: I have urges to kill people and I'm not allowed, but my friends has urges to eat chocolate cake all the time and that's okay.

I know that it's not exactly a perfect analogy but it is true. What you really mean to say is: It's not fair, what I want is not what God wants.

Then there is the underlying question: why did God make me this way? Why do I want something that is wrong?

The truth is, we all do. Some of us want to be filthy rich and famous. Some of us want to be anti-social and alone. Some of us never want to marry. Some of us want to be lazy and gluttonous. Some of us want to be nasty and mean to others. The natural man is an enemy of God. We all want something that God doesn't approve.

In Greek mythology, it would be called "our fatal flaw." Everyone has it.

A ill tempered person learn to control themselves to get a job and work with his coworkers. A lazy person forces themselves out of bed every day and do something more productive than watch TV because we all need to eat to live. A compulsive liar have to restrain themselves to get along in the society.

And a person with homosexual inclination must resist their desire to enter the kingdom of God.

80 years of restraint for an eternity of happiness. Is that too high a price to pay?

 For most of you reading this, this may not be a personal problem. But each of us have a weakness. Something that our natural self wants and fights for every day. Something that God disproves. We must battle each day to resist that. Sacrifice our desire. Never say, "it's not fair that what I want is not what God wants," learn instead to want what God would want.

Only then have we won the race of life.