just needed a protractor.

I am getting near the end of this semester. I only have two tests left and two projects! It's very exciting. After that I have three more classes to take during spring term and I'm officially done! It's becoming more and more real to me that I will graduate.

Yesterday I was working on a project for one of my classes. I thought a cool visual for it would be a pentagon to represent the five parts of the project and I bought my posterboard and started trying to draw out a pentagon on the back. I say "try" because it ultimately didn't work. I tried for about an hour to draw out this pentagon using various techniques; I drew a five-pointed-star in the middle with all kinds of angles and measurements and I just couldn't do it. This is where anyone who remembers geometry starts laughing at me. But this was an important moment, I believe. I like to think of this whole incident as the parable of the pentagon. At that point my friend quickly calculated the angle of a pentagon (108 degrees) and told me I needed a protractor if I wanted to draw a perfect pentagon. I scoffed and tried to improvise a little more. Then I humbled myself a little and finally went to the bookstore and bought a protractor for $2.50. I went back to my project and in less than a minute I'd drawn a perfect pentagon with the help of that little, plastic protractor. What a concept! With the correct knowledge and appropriate tool, I could do it. I felt like I was trying to re-invent the wheel with my initial approach. It was frustrating. I didn't know that producing something so simple could be so difficult.

I almost immediately saw a way to apply this to broader concepts in my life. True, this was just a small project, but I also saw it as a metaphor for doing things the Lord's way. The scriptures from Isaiah 55 (verses 8 and 9) came to mind:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

For me this was about humbling myself to have the faith to do something outside my realm of knowledge. I saw eventually that it was a very simple task. I only needed a small, plastic device to accomplish what I needed to do. I compare this to living righteously or keeping the commandments. Life can seem very complicated without guidelines. We can make plenty of mistakes and take so many detours without the simple bounds of the commandments. Life mathematical rules, the commandments are eternal. They make my life easier (notice I didn't say easy). If I have learned anything from this experience (besides how to draw a pentagon), I have learned that I should turn to the Lord more quickly in my times of need and more frequently in general. My knowledge is flawed and mortal. His is perfect and eternal. He always knows the correct way. In order to do something perfect, or become perfect, I cannot rely on my own strength or knowledge. It just isn't sufficient.

Another interesting thing to note about this metaphor, a pentagon is based on the number five, of course, which is often connected with perfection. How interesting that I could not make something perfect without the correct knowledge.

I hope you enjoyed this little parable. I think I will use it in my Relief Society lesson next week. Any ideas on what talk from conference I should center my lesson on?