It Is Better To Be Good Than To Be Right

One of the main sources of animosity between Jesus and the leaders of the Jewish faith were his many so called violations of the Sabbath. The Savior went about doing good whether it was on the Sabbath or any other day. When He saw a man with a withered hand, His immediate thought was to have compassion on this man. His second thought, however, was not, Shoot, It’s the Sabbath and healing is technically working, and I mean, what would the rabbis think if they caught me trying to do work on the Sabbath. No. His second thought was, I have the power to take away this man’s suffering right now. He’s dealt with this long enough. The Savior recognized that the Sabbath is a day for us to rest from our labors but on that particular day, the Sabbath was also a day for that man to rest from his suffering. The commandments should always be tools that help us to choose to love and serve our neighbors and our God. They should never be used as an excuse or a justification as to why we couldn’t possibly help those in need. The promptings of the spirit right now are more important than any commandment written long ago. Look at Nephi. The Spirit prompted him to kill Laban, asking him to break one of the TEN COMMANDMENTS. If we put our trust in the Lord, He will lead us in the way we should go. The Lord’s ways are not our ways. He may ask us to do things that may appear unrighteous, that seem to go against certain rules or regulations. Christ says not to touch the unclean thing, but in His mercy he placed his hand upon the leper and healed Him. There is a reason that the Lord does not require a rigid and unyielding adherence to a bewilderingly detailed set of codes and laws, outlining the proper procedure in each and every situation. Life is messy. It’s complicated. Sometimes there’s an ox in the mire and he’s scared and alone and feeling abandoned and we should go over there and roll up our sleeves and get a little mud on our nice church shoes and get them out of that mire. We can see a fellow beaten up on the side of the road and we can cling to our righteousness like a talisman to ward off the promptings of the spirit, the feelings of compassion and love and pass by on the other side. Or we can let go of the rationalizations and the justifications and yield to the enticings of the spirit and let our goodness triumph over our self-righteousness.