There is a compelling message embedded in Arcade Fire’s song Wake Up: growing older does not necessarily mean growing up or becoming better. Our bodies mature automatically. Our souls do not.

A person can accumulate decades of experience and still remain remarkably selfish, proud, dishonest, resentful, lazy, emotionally immature, and spiritually blind. Time does not make us wise. Age does not make us good. Life merely gives us opportunities to become better. Whether we actually do so depends largely upon how we respond to the truth God reveals to us, vs. the lies and deceptions Satan tempts us with.

The song begins by describing a heart that has grown cold with age. Someone told the child not to cry. But with age came the realization that this was a lie. It was bad advice. There is nothing inherently helpful or mature about becoming emotionally hardened. We may learn to hide our weakness, suppress our feelings, protect our pride, distrust others, and prevent ourselves from being hurt. But eventually we can become so good at protecting our hearts that we become incapable of using them properly.

Interestingly, Jesus taught that genuine spiritual maturity actually requires recovering some of what adulthood tends to destroy:

“…Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
—Matthew 18:3–4

King Benjamin taught the same principle even more explicitly:

“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”
—Mosiah 3:19

God does not want us to remain childish. He wants us to become childlike. There is an enormous difference. We are supposed to abandon selfishness, foolishness, laziness, pride, impulsiveness, and irresponsibility while retaining—or recovering—humility, honesty, tenderness, curiosity, teachability, trust, and love.

Then comes one of the most powerful ideas in the song: Wake up. Hold your mistake up.

That is an excellent description of how repentance begins.

Look at what you have done. Look at what you have become. Stop hiding it. Stop minimizing it. Stop blaming your parents, spouse, church, enemies, childhood, circumstances, genetics, or society. Stop constructing sophisticated explanations for why your failures are understandable while everyone else’s failures are inexcusable.

Hold your mistake up.

Look at it honestly.

Then correct it.

Unfortunately, human beings will often do almost anything rather than this. Religion itself can become an escape from repentance. We can attend meetings, perform ordinances, go to temples, quote scripture, defend doctrines, pay tithing, hold positions, proclaim our righteousness, and condemn the sins of others, pretending that this is all that is required—all while carefully avoiding the much more difficult work of confronting and correcting what is actually wrong within ourselves.

That is not righteousness. It is the illusion of righteousness.

Christ did not come merely to make us feel good about ourselves. He came to make us better. Much better.

The Book of Mormon provides an extraordinarily high standard for measuring whether religion is actually accomplishing its purpose:

“And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”
—Mosiah 5:2

That is efficacious religion.

That is a religion that effects real positive change resulting in good fruit.

Jesus taught essentially the same standard:

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
—Matthew 7:16–17

Look at the fruit.

If our religion is not making us more honest, humble, courageous, disciplined, charitable, useful, forgiving, wise, and loving, then something is wrong. If year after year we continue producing contention, resentment, dishonesty, manipulation, pride, broken relationships, and misery, we should eventually stop blaming everyone standing underneath the tree and examine the tree itself.

The song describes humanity as millions of “little gods” creating storms and turning good things to rust. That is a remarkably accurate description of fallen humanity. We possess tremendous power to create good or evil in the world around us. We can build families, friendships, communities, businesses, and churches—or poison them. Pride creates storms. Lust creates storms. Envy creates storms. Anger creates storms. Greed and the desire for wealth and power create storms.

And fallen men have an astonishing capacity to destroy something beautiful and then explain why someone else made them do it.

Wake up.

Eventually the reaper reaches out his hand.

The prospect of death has a wonderful ability to expose nonsense. Money, titles, institutional standing, popularity, reputation, possessions, accomplishments, religious credentials, and carefully maintained appearances suddenly mean very little. We will ultimately stand before God completely naked with none of these things available to disguise what we actually became.

That is why mortality matters so much.

We did not come here merely to accumulate experiences, have fun, be entertained, make money, perform religious duties, or belong to the correct institutions. We came here to become better people. We came to learn good from evil, exercise agency, acquire truth, develop faith, repent of evil, overcome the natural man, learn to love, and become increasingly more like Jesus Christ.

And that gives Wake Up an extraordinarily powerful spiritual message:

Wake up, of your own accord, before death and judgement forces you to wake up.

Hold your mistakes up while you can still correct them. Examine your fruit while there is still time to make corrections and grow something better. Ask God to show you what is false, selfish, foolish, immature, and evil within you—and then possess enough humility, faith, and courage to change and correct it.

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