Using Agency Wisely: Setting Priorities
Unless we know what matters most to us, we will spend much of our life doing things that don’t matter to us as much as the things we neglect. To use our agency wisely, we have to know what we want out of life. One question I often ask
Good and Evil Are Polar Opposites--New Era June 2007
myself when faced with a choice to make is this: Is what I’m getting worth more than what I’m giving up?” This question reminds me that each time I choose something, I am giving up the other options. The challenge is to choose the option that gives me what I really want from life—not right this moment, but for eternity.
For instance, I am sometimes asked by church members struggling with the gospel, “Do you think God will really keep me out of the Celestial Kingdom over a cup of coffee?” The church teaches us that coffee is one of the several things God has asked us to avoid, as part of the Word of Wisdom, a Mormon health code. The answer to this question, of course, is, “Are you willing to give up your right to spend eternity in God’s presence for a mere cup of coffee?” It’s important to ask the right question when settling priorities. When deciding what to drink with my breakfast, I can see I have two choices (at least.) If I’m a coffee drinker and a member of the church, or someone who wants to become a member, I will ask myself, “Which do I want most for eternity: Coffee, or God?” Put that way, the choice seems obvious. A cup of coffee this morning is not worth more to me than the opportunity to live with God someday. While it might bring momentary pleasure, it will deny me the eternal joy I’m seeking.
While the questioner might have felt she had the question the right way around, she was simply organizing it to meet her own short-sighted desires. God always knows what is best for us, and one reason we are here is to develop self-control and to set priorities. Just as we teach our young children to forego a candy bar this week so he can save faster for the bicycle he wants, God wants us to learn to put aside immediate pleasures in favor of eternal ones.
When faced with a choice, evaluate the short-term and long-term consequences. When we find ourselves choosing the short-term pleasures even when we know the gospel has taught us otherwise, we can see this as a warning that it is time to evaluate and strengthen our testimonies.
For those who are not Mormons, and are held back from converting due to an unwillingness to give up certain habits, the first step is to pray and find out if the lifestyle choice you’ve made has God’s approval. If it’s something you’re strongly attached to, it can be a challenge (and even an act of courage) to go to God humbly, and completely ready to receive His advice without imposing your own will on it. This is, however, the only way to find the strength and conviction needed to make choices and changes.
Once you know God’s will on the subject, spend time putting it into context of your personal goals and your eternal goals. Is the party you want to attend more important than the test you need to study for in terms of your personal goals? Is the friend whose company you enjoy but who is always baiting you to lower your standards important enough to risk giving in to him at a weak moment?
Is that cup of coffee worth the price of Heaven?
Using Agency Wisely: Consequences
Filed under: For the Strength of the Youth, Life Lessons, Making Decisions, Old Testament
In order to learn to make wise use of our eternal gift of agency, we must understand that each choice we make has consequences. These consequences can affect our entire lives and even our eternities. They also affect others. When we learn to evaluate the consequences of our choices, we are better able to make wise choices and get the most from our agency.
In the past, many Mormons used the term “free agency” to describe our God-given right to choose for ourselves. Today, church leaders discourage that term, because agency is not free, and they want us to understand this. Instead, they encourage the use of the term “moral agency.” Read more
Eternally Safe Choices–Undertanding Agency
Filed under: Becoming More Christlike, Discovering Yourself, Finding joy within the gospel, For the Strength of the Youth, Living the Gospel, Making Decisions, Peer Pressure, Teens & Seminary
The teen years are filled with temptation. The media, peers, even teachers and other adults can try to convince a young person that sin is okay, natural, normal, and fun. For a teenager with high standards and an eye for eternity, it can be a challenge to stay on the right path, when so many people are determined to take her off that path.
Fortunately, God and His servants have outlined effective ways for teens—and adults—to stay safe.
Staying safe is a matter of choices, and to make wise choices, we have to understand the concept of agency. This article will focus on agency, and future articles in this series will walk through the process of using that understanding to make eternally safe choices. Read more
Remembering to Do Right
Most of us want to do the right thing and to keep God’s commandments. However, in the press of everyday life, with rushed schedules, pressure from others, and conflicting desires, it can be difficult to make good choices, or even to remember to do the right thing.
One way to help resolve this problem is to surround ourselves with reminders of who we are and what we stand for. By having our world filled with symbols of our faith, we can stay focused on the eternal goal, even when the immediate demands of life are crowding in.
Mormon children are given a ring to wear on their finger that contains a shield with the letters CTR on it. The lett
ers stand for Choose the Right, and children are taught to look at their ring when they make a decision. If they develop the habit of doing this and remembering what the ring is telling them, in time, it can become a habit, so they’ll make the right choice even without a ring handy. However, even many adults wear CTR rings, because it never hurts to be reminded.
Mormons are counseled to place in their homes items that will remind them of their Savior. Gospel art work is one way to keep minds and hearts focused on God. Having a few inexpensive pictures in your home can help you to contemplate how you use your time when you’re at home. Place the pictures in the places you spend the most time or in the spaces that might create the most temptation. The artwork need not be expensive. I often purchase calendars with religious art, and then frame the pictures I like best when the year ends.
Mormons can also ask the leaders of auxiliary organizations to let them know when they’re planning to throw out old picture packets because too many of the pictures are lost. These often have farmable pictures in them.
LDS.org offers an inexpensive new gospel art book, as well. For only a few dollars, you can receive many colored pictures in a spiral binder. These can be placed on an easel, allowing you to change the picture often.
Keeping the scriptures in easily accessible places can also serve as a reminder to read them and to honor what is contained inside. During times when I expect it to be easy to get distracted, I place my Bible and Book of Mormon on my keyboard before going to bed. Since I am a writer and spend my days at my computer, this served as a clear reminder to me to read before I began my work for the morning.
I also have a framed quote on my desk about how God expects us to use our talents to serve Him. I copied it into a word processing program, and put a light picture behind it. Then I printed it off and framed it. Because it sits right where I work, it reminds me to write appropriately, and not to be tempted by popular culture to write something I should not.
Sometimes the greater challenge comes when we leave our home. This is one reason so many Mormons wear CTR rings. However, any type of religious jewelry can serve the same purpose, but only if you desire to do the right thing anyway. A ring is simply not enough to keep you from doing wrong if you’re determined to do the right thing.
The most important way to remember to do right is to live worthy of help from the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost can’t be in unclean environments, so we must be attempting to do the right thing. When we’re tempted to make a poor choice, the Holy Ghost or Spirit of Christ can remind us of the promises we’ve made to God and give us the courage to carry them out. However, it’s then our responsibility to act on that prompting. If we ignore it and continue the sin, the Holy Ghost must flee and we’re left alone to cope with the results.
“The gift of the Holy Ghost, given to us when we are confirmed, gives us the ability to discern the difference between the giving ways of the kingdom of God and the taking practices of the world. The Holy Ghost gives us the strength and courage to conduct our lives in the ways of the kingdom of God and is the source of our testimony of the Father and the Son. As we obey the will of our Father in Heaven, this priceless gift of the Holy Ghost will be with us continually.
We need the Holy Ghost as our constant companion to help us make better choices in the decisions that confront us daily. Our young men and women are bombarded with ugly things of the world. Companionship with the Spirit will give them the strength to resist evil and, when necessary, repent and return to the strait and narrow path. None of us are immune from the temptations of the adversary. We all need the fortification available through the Holy Ghost. Mothers and fathers should prayerfully invite the Holy Spirit to dwell in their dedicated homes. Having the gift of the Holy Ghost helps family members make wise choices-choices that will help them return with their families to their Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, to live with Them eternally.” (See Robert D. Hales, “The Covenant of Baptism: To Be in the Kingdom and of the Kingdom,” Ensign, Nov 2000, 6-9.)
The most important part of the process is to develop the desire to do right and the faith to know that what God has asked of us is always the best choice. Once that is in place, the other tools will help us to follow through with what we have chosen to do.
In time, obedience becomes easier. If we decide only once, rather than every time we’re in a decision-making setting, we are more likely to make the right choice. For instance, when I’m offered alcohol, I don’t have to stop and decide what to do. I made my choice when I was ten years old, long before I was LDS. It’s not a temptation, and it’s no longer a decision-it’s an automatic reaction. I simply say no without any thought at all. This takes time, but the more our faith grows, the more decisions will begin to be automatic for us.
Why Prayer Matters
Filed under: Gospel Principles, Practices & Precepts, Making Decisions
Mormon beliefs include the understanding that God answers prayers in one of three ways: Yes, No, and Not Yet. Mormons teach that God will answer the prayer in the way that is best. He evaluates the situation with a longer view than we can possibly have, balancing our desires against what we will need in the near and distant future, and how our request will affect others. Mormons learn to pray that God’s will, not their own, be done.
So why pray at all, if God’s going to do what’s best, anyway?
Letting God choose isn’t the same as not praying-you don’t get the same results. When you don’t pray at all, you don’t invite God into the process. You do all the research, make all the plans, make all the decisions, and then carry them out alone. You also accept the full responsibility for the results, which may affect others, and may include unintended consequences. Eventually, we have to answer to God for the choices we make. Wouldn’t it be better to run them by Him to begin with?
When faced with a problem that doesn’t involve a decision, such as a serious illness, we can also choose to let nature take its course if we want to, or we can ask God to step in and do what’s best. We have agency, we can choose whether or not to seek and receive help.
Praying allows us to do several things. First, when you have to make a choice, you often consult with an expert. For instance, if you’re having trouble getting your toddler to nap, you go to your favorite message board, the experienced mom next door, or your most dependable parenting book. This might be enough when an experiment or two won’t really hurt anything, but often, the choices we need to make are much larger than that. They can change our entire lives, or the lives of others. In those cases, there is only one possible source of advice.
Sometimes a decision may not seem critical, but in the long run, the choice you make can have unexpected consequences or rewards. For instance, when my husband wanted to move here, closer to his job, I balked. I liked it where I was and didn’t want to go. Finally, I took it to God and was told very clearly to go. Now that I’m here, I know why. I’ve had opportunities here I’ve needed and couldn’t have gotten if I’d stayed put. There was no possible way to foresee those opportunities, however, on my own. I could have stayed, and maybe nothing awful would have happened, but later on, when a need arose, I wouldn’t be ready for it because I’d lack some skills I needed.
Sometimes our requests involve the agency of others, and God can only plant ideas in their hearts, but can’t take away their agency. It is still worth praying over, because we do want those ideas planted if they’re what’s best and we’ll know we did the best we could, even if praying was all we could do when the problem concerned the choices of others.
Another purpose in prayer is to give us regular feedback on our choices. We need to learn how to make wise choices for our lives. Sometimes the results of our choices are obvious, but often, they aren’t. When we make decisions about parenting, for instance, the results may not be known for decades. Parenting fads change often and by the time we find out what would have been best, it’s too late. When we regularly go to God for help with our daily choices, we can watch for patterns in His answers, and after a while, our ability to make decisions He approves of improves.
When we put things into God’s hands, we avoid the randomness of the natural world. We have a feeling of peace and security because we know the best choices are being made, even if we can’t possibly understand why God made the choice He did.
We have agency, the right to choose. God won’t force us to turn our problems over to Him. We can choose to do everything ourselves, hoping for the best and trusting our own wisdom, which is limited and usually self-centered, or we can opt to turn our problems and needs over to God and let Him show us the path. The results of either choose-going it alone or turning it over to God-will be very different in most cases, but the choice is yours.
The Power of One Phone Call – My Conversion
I worked as a co-host and producer on a syndicated radio program 7 to midnight in Charlotte, NC around the time of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics in 2002. The Nite Show – as it was called – covered local and entertainment news programmed with music. Inevitably, the host of the show started a radio “bit” about polygamy and we (like every other member of the entertainment community) joked about the church’s former practice. Privately, I knew a little about “Mormons” because I dated my now-husband and he had been an inactive member of the church since he was about 12 or 13. So I knew a little about it.
So at work that night – just like every night – we took phone calls during music and commercials and one call came in for me personally. On the other end of the line was a guy who was driving through an area far north of where the radio station was. He said he was a member of the LDS church and heard me on the air. He asked me why I was making fun of the Mormons. I remember responding something like “Hey! My husband used to be a Mormon – why aren’t you guys riding your bikes up to my door?” The caller told me if I wanted someone at my door he would arrange it. We talked a few minutes and he was very nice so I gave him my cell phone number.
In hindsight, it’s weird that I would have felt comfortable enough with a stranger on the phone to hand out my personal number. I now believe it was the promptings of the Spirit that made me want to know more about what he was talking about.
After that, the radio show went on and I forgot about the call by the end of the night. A few days later the missionaries called and I surprised my husband by telling him I wanted to know more about the LDS church. The missionaries started teaching me about the Restored Gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I had lots of questions like, “Where do we come from?“, “Where do we go when we die?“, “Why are there so many world religions?”, “Does God exist?“, “If he does, why would God provide prophets in the Old and New Testaments, but not for us today?“. The missionaries answered these questions (the plan of salvation gave the answer to all these) and more and it was like a puzzle coming together. The Book of Mormon made complete sense to me. Even though – admittedly – I had yet – at that early time in my conversion – to gain a strong testimony of Joseph Smith’s work, the Book of Mormon spoke to my heart.
“Believe in God; believe that He is, and that He created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that He has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.” (Mosiah 4:9)
The amazing message that Jesus Christ’s church had been restored was humbling – I thought I knew so much about church. Even so, I still felt like a significant daughter of God who received the message He had sent. I was baptized a few weeks later.
I’m grateful to say that since joining the Church, I have gained a testimony of Joseph Smith as well as a testimony of the Atonement and it seems to continue to grow and unfold as I go.
I recently was in a Fast & Testimony meeting and a young man stood up and went to the stand. He told us he was visiting from another ward. He testified how small inspired decisions can make big changes for good. He told us of a night when he was driving his car, listening to the radio and was prompted to call the DJ to ask why she was making fun of the Mormons. He said he had heard that she had been was baptized and became a member of the LDS church. My husband and I looked at each other in disbelief. After that meeting I went up to and introduced myself to the man who made that one little decision to call me which ultimately brought my family back into church.
I know God loves me because coincidences like this have occurred more than once in my life. He gives all of us the inherent ability to recognize sweet gifts of the Spirit and the LDS Church encourages us to strengthen it for ourselves.
“That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth . . .” (Ephesians 1:10)