Spiritual Insights From Ultimate Frisbee?

            Over Thanksgiving break I had a spiritual experience playing Ultimate Frisbee that is totally relevant to missionaries, and I want to share it as my last post (besides my conclusion). 

ultimatefrisbeefan.com

            During the very first play of our second game of Frisbee, my team had the disk, and we were moving aggressively up the field.  I threw a perfect forehand pass to a young guy on my team, but unfortunately he dropped it.  He apologized for the drop, and I told him not to worry about it. 

Later that game, this young player and I charged up the field on defense to cover the first passes of our opponents.  I covered the thrower tightly.  He threw in sideways across the field to try to get it to a more open thrower, but my young teammate knocked it out of the air.  Quickly he darted into the end zone.  I scooped up the Frisbee.  The defender on the young man was covering him like butter on toast.  Suddenly the young man cut right.  He got just a half step a head of his defender.  I shot him a forehand with laser precision, which he caught gloriously.  When I congratulated him in the end zone, to my surprise he said, “Thank you for trusting me with that.”

After a moment of bewilderment, I realized that he must have been referring to his drop about an hour ago.  When I picked up the disk, the fact that he had dropped a pass earlier never even crossed my mind.  All I thought was, “He just made a great defensive stop.  I want him to get this touch down!” 

At that moment I realized that this situation was similar to repentance.  In life we all make mistakes.  It is our job to repent, and have faith that the Lord will forgive us.  In life, and especially as a missionary, Satan tries to make you doubt the Lord’s mercy.  He goes for everything from old sins that have been repented of and resolved with priesthood authority, to small, current imperfections you are striving whole-heartedly to overcome.  He tries to make you believe that you can’t be forgiven and will never be worthy of the Holy Ghost.  These lies, if believed, can be totally debilitating for missionaries.

My Mission President taught me that the Lord forgives us long before we forgive ourselves.  I am so grateful for this Frisbee experience because as I have pondered it, it has given me hope.  I think to myself, “If I, an imperfect person, can quickly forgive the mistakes of a teammate and trust him in the game, how much more should I expect the Lord, a perfectly merciful person, to be able to forgive me and trust me with his errands in his work.”

It is my testimony that the atonement is real, and that the Lord is more merciful than any of us can image.  I know that if you sincerely repent and go to work, then the Lord will give you chance after chance to be an instrument in his hands.

(See these sources on the subject:  The Atonement Can Clean, Reclaim, and Sanctify Our Lives, Shayne M. Bowen; The Great and Wonderful Love, Anthony D. Perkins; Ether 2-3 (Book of Mormon))