Are Rules Only for Children?

Yes? . . . no? . . . maybe so?

I’ve realized lately the extreme extent to which I’ve become a victim of the rules! But not even just of rules, in general, so much as I’ve become a victim of my ‘own rules’! I’ve taken regulations that were meant to be guidelines, and exalted them to the level that they sometimes replace the principles which they were meant to support! (Hm-m-m? Sounds familiar. Anyone read the New Testament lately?)

I think that, as a child, I must have sometime vowed, “I’ll never break the rules”! Well, yes, that could be admirable, but then again, it can be taken to a ridiculous extent. As an adult, I should have grown past the childish rules as I developed the power of discernment. For example, I’m sure I was once told to never go in the street. Well, now as an adult, I use my own judgment in discerning whether or not it’s okay to ‘go in the street’, and no longer take that as a set-in-stone rule, as it is for a child. But in too many other things, I apparently never matured, perhaps unconsciously refusing to take the responsibility, and therefore remaining a child in those things.

In thinking about the idea that maybe I get too caught up in the “rules” and overlook the real issues, I recalled that some of the most Christ-like people I know are NOT strict rule observers! They’re not exactly disrespectful of law and order; just that they seem to not spend so much time worrying about following protocol, as I sometimes do.

I thought about how we teach children simple rules for their protection and guidance, because they’re not equipped to understand the reasoning that would help them to live merely by common sense and self-discipline. Similarly, I recalled Moses and the Ten Commandments and the forty years in the desert, and how we’re told that the Israelites weren’t ready for higher laws, so they had to live by simple rules and everything had to be spelled out for them. I even remember the days when if you taught a Sunday School class, the manual would almost tell you every word to say. Now the manuals talk about basic principles, refer you to scriptures, and tell you to pray about which of the stories, examples, scriptures, etc., to use to best meet the needs of your class, in teaching that specific principle.

Along the same line, I remember a Music Theory teacher I had in high school. He responded to questions about all the exceptions to the rules of music composition, by agreeing that there are, indeed, many exceptions to the rules that he was making us learn. But then he explained, “You have to know all the rules before you can know which ones you can break.” I always thought that was good advice to be applied to life in general. (But then I forgot to apply it.)

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that this gives us license to break rules. But I am starting to see that maybe I need to back off a little and remember that, generally speaking, the ‘rules’ are given for guidelines. When the Savior was asked which were the most important commandments, he didn’t go into a long lecture listing myriads of rules. He focused on the two most important principles, and trusted people to make their own decisions based on those principles. He even explained that if those commandments were kept, there wouldn’t be a need for all the others (because if you lived within the spirit of that law, you would automatically make good choices, without having to have everything spelled out for you!) During his ministry, he was often criticized by the Pharisees for ‘breaking the rules’, to which he often pointed out what amounted to the need to use common sense and recognize priorities. He put things into perspective.

So along with my resolve to turn more frequently to the Savior, maybe I need to also follow more closely his example and advice. I need to pay attention to the rules, but at the same time, I need to focus on eventually learning to live by the principles, rather than by the ‘letter of the law’. Maybe it’s time I grew up a little more. ‘When I was a child . . . I understood as a child . . . , but when I became [an adult]’ – maybe it’s time to take the risk of making my own decisions, based on the principles. It all kind of reminds me of that saying that there are three levels of obedience: doing things out of fear, doing things out of duty, and doing things out of love! Same idea – we progress as we mature in our understanding.

Yes, I still believe in ‘following the rules’. It’s just that I’m becoming conscious of the fact that if rules can be defined as guidelines, then the need to follow them should be determined by how badly I want to go to the place to which they’re ‘guiding’ me. For example, if I want to get good grades, I need to study and do the work. If I want a clean house, I have to make my bed, vacuum, and clean the toilet on a regular basis. You get the picture.

The confusion – and the stress – arises when I realize that some of the many things that I ‘want’, have conflicting rules – or maybe it’s more often just that they all add up to be too big a set of rules to be humanly possible to deal with! Then I have to prioritize, and drop some of the rules associated with the less important or less urgent goals.

Sometimes I may even need to break a rule, in order to obey the more important commandments. After all, isn’t that what our father, Adam, did when he was informed by Eve that she had eaten of the Forbidden Fruit?