Lights and Perfections

Translated from Hebrew, Urim and Thummim mean “Lights” and “Perfections”. The Prophet Jacob described that all revelation and prophecy boil down to being shown things as they really are and things as they really will be - “Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old.” The Urim and Thummim, and also the Holy Ghost, show things as they really are, and things as they really will be. The Urim, or the lights, show things as they really are. In the pure light of heaven, all of the vagueness and the shadows of deception and justification and rationalization are cast out. The truth allows us to see things as they really are - not things as we wish they could have been, or things as we meant them to be, but things as they really are. Sometimes we take the truth to be hard, perhaps, even, harder than we think we can bear. It is no small task to look at things as they really are, without the ego-protecting armor of confirmation biases and blind dogmatism or the comforting illusions of white lies and euphemisms. To see things as they really are is to recognize how wretched and deplorable is our fallen state. If this was all that we could hope to obtain from revelation then we might understandably shut our eyes tight, as so many of us so often do. But in addition to the Urim, or Lights, is the Thummim, or Perfections. We are blessed not only to see things as they really are, but also to see things as they really will be. Looking at the reality of our current circumstances is hard, but looking at the reality of our future circumstances can and ought to be exciting. If we can bear the lights of the present, then we can move towards the perfections that really will be waiting for us. To fully embrace the true Spirit of Revelation is to have a clear view of things as they really are, including our own worthless and unprofitable state, and at the same time to have a clear view of things as they really will be, including our destiny to inherit all that our Father has. Holding both the Urim and the Thummim means that we have the glorious vision of things as they really will be to sustain the hard realities of our present; and it means that we will have a firm and practical grasp on our own limitations so that we may be patient with ourselves as we work to transform the things as they really are into the things as they really will be. It is significant that they are called the Urim and Thummim - “Lights” plural, and “Perfections” plural. Our salvation is, if not exactly a moving target, at least one that requires constant re-aiming, not because the nature of Salvation has changed, but because our ability to perceive it has. We may start out only able to perceive a single matchstick’s worth of the Lights, and only a Bonsai Eden’s worth of the Perfections. But as we become accustomed to one Light and Perfection, another is added onto it, and another and another. As long as we can hold onto both our Urim and our Thummim with perfect balance - neither running faster than we have strength, nor settling to live below our privilege, than we will be in the delightful process of trading today’s lights for tomorrow’s perfections, over and over in one eternal round.