Probation

 I was reading in Elder Neil L Anderson's book, The Divine Gift of Forgiveness, and in chapter 15 he says something very interesting. 

"This earth life would not be a time of absolute perfection, but a time of choosing good over evil, of learning by experience and the power of our spirits to put our trust in God, follow Him, and build out faith in Him. It would be a probationary state where we would make mistakes."

Normally I think about probation as a time of proving your perfection. If a person in on probation at their job, or from jail, they are proving whether they can and will do what they said. And if they make a mistake, they could lose their job or go back to jail. It's not a time where mistakes are allowed.

What I found interesting is that he defines a probationary state differently. He says mistakes are allowed; in fact they are expected. "...we would make mistakes" sounds like a pretty clear statement of fact to me.

So I looked up "probation" in the dictionary. The word comes from Latin probare, meaning "to test, or prove". Our modern dictionary defines it the way I was thinking, "the release of an offender from detention, subject to a period of good behavior under supervision" or "subjection of an individual to a period of testing and trial to ascertain fitness (as for a job or school)".

But, the 1828 dictionary, which more closely aligns with how words are used in the scriptures, says "Trial; examination; any proceeding designed to ascertain truth" It has a few other definitions for specific cases (education, monastery, clergy), but they are all about a trial of qualifications. It also says, "In general, trial for proof, or satisfactory evidence, or the time of trial." 

I like "qualification" and "satisfactory evidence." Someone can be qualified, and not perfect. They have knowledge and skills, but can make mistakes. Satisfactory evidence is enough of a good showing to make a conclusion. Your evidence does not have to be perfect to be satisfactory. There can be anomalies or missing data. But if there is enough good data, one can come to a good conclusion. This is what most of scientific evidence is, not perfect data, but enough good data in the same direction to come to a conclusion.

We can make mistakes. The test is not whether we will sin, but what we will do after we sin. If we make an effort to repent and return to Christ, if we try over and over and make a little progress, if we offer him a humble heart and give our will to Him, there is satisfactory evidence that we can and will follow Christ, and we will be redeemed.