No enduring improvement can occur without righteous exercise of agency. Do not attempt to override agency. The Lord himself would not do that. Forced obedience yields no blessings.
When you have done all that you can reasonably do, rest the burden in the hands of the Lord.
I have no expectation that I'll ever be provided external evidence sufficient to relieve me of the responsibility of choice or of the burden of faith...
So the thing that really is poignant to me, and the thing that I want to get to is the fact that the Hong Kongers — desperate to preserve their freedom, under the gun with people being kidnapped and disappearing and laws creeping in there that are meant to erode their freedoms — are waving the American flag. And they're singing our "Star-Spangled Banner." They are waving the American flag. And this is — I mean this should move all of us. This should touch every single one of us, and remind us that when people look for freedom, when they are afraid of oppression, when they strive to become the one thing that all great people have to be — which is free — and all individuals want to be, which is free. And the only thing that gives nobility to charity the only thing that gives nobility to faith in God, the only thing that gives nobility to a person is if he chooses those things freely. Right, if you choose to believe you — don't believe at the edge of a sword because that has no legitimacy.
Moral laws do not apply to animals for they have no agency. Where there is agency, where there is choice, moral laws must apply.
When our youth are taught that they are but animals, they feel free, even compelled, to respond to every urge and impulse. We should not be so puzzled at what is happening to society. We have sown the wind, and now we inherit the whirlwind. The chickens, so the saying goes, are now coming home to roost.
Nothing is more important than marrying the right person at the right time, in the right place, and by the right authority.
The term moral agency is instructive. Synonyms for the word moral can include “good,” “honest,” “virtuous,” and “honorable.” Synonyms for the word agency can include “action,” “activity,” and “work.” Hence, moral agency can be understood as the ability and privilege to choose and to act for ourselves in ways that are good, honest, virtuous, and honorable.
Please note, the fundamental purposes for the exercise of agency are to love one another and to choose God. Consider that we are commanded—not merely admonished, urged, or counseled—but commanded to use our agency to turn outward, to love one another, and to choose God.
The adversary’s selfish scheme was to strip away from the sons and daughters of God the gift to become “agents unto themselves” who could act in righteousness. His intent was that all of Heavenly Father’s children become objects that could only be acted upon.
Now beware. The ease of use, perceived accuracy, and rapid response time that characterize artificial intelligence can create a potentially beguiling, addictive, and suffocating influence on the exercise of our moral agency. Because AI is cloaked in the credibility and promises of scientific progress, we might naively be seduced into surrendering our precious moral agency to a technology that can only think telestial. By so doing, we may gradually be transformed from agents who can act into objects that are only acted upon. And we may unwittingly help Lucifer to achieve in mortality what he was unable to accomplish in premortality.
And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves."
God will not live our lives for us nor control us as if we were His puppets, as Lucifer once proposed to do. Nor will His prophets accept the role of “puppet master” in God’s place.
It is God’s will that we be free men and women enabled to rise to our full potential both temporally and spiritually, that we be free from the humiliating limitations of poverty and the bondage of sin, that we enjoy self-respect and independence, that we be prepared in all things to join Him in His celestial kingdom.
“We know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." And we do not need to achieve some minimum level of capacity or goodness before God will help—divine aid can be ours every hour of every day, no matter where we are in the path of obedience. But I know that beyond desiring His help, we must exert ourselves, repent, and choose God for Him to be able to act in our lives consistent with justice and moral agency.
God intends that His children should act according to the moral agency He has given them, “that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.”2 It is His plan and His will that we have the principal decision-making role in our own life’s drama.
God will not act to make us something we do not choose by our actions to become.
So by making repentance a condition for receiving the gift of grace, God enables us to retain responsibility for ourselves. Repentance respects and sustains our moral agency
This requires a knowledge of good and evil on our part, with the capacity and opportunity to choose between the two. And it requires accountability for choices made—otherwise they aren’t really choices. Choice, in turn, requires law, or predictable outcomes. We must be able by a particular action or choice to cause a particular outcome or result—and by the opposite choice create the opposite outcome. If actions don’t have fixed consequences, then one has no control over outcomes, and choice is meaningless.
Using justice as a synonym for law, Alma states, “Now the work of justice [that is, the operation of law] [cannot] be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:13). It is His perfect understanding and use of law—or in other words, His justice—that gives God His power. We need the justice of God, a system of fixed and immutable laws that He Himself abides by and employs, so that we can have and exercise agency.2 This justice is the foundation of our freedom to act and is our only path to ultimate happiness.
We must defend personal accountability against our own inclinations to avoid the work that is required to cultivate talents, abilities, and Christlike character...We must exert ourselves, repent, and choose God for Him to be able to act in our lives consistent with with justice and moral agency.
When pride has a hold on our hearts, we lose our independence of the world and deliver our freedoms to the bondage of men's judgement....The reasoning of men overrides the revelations of God, and the proud let go of the iron rod.
We often hear the term “exercise agency.” Love the verb. Like a muscle, we use it or lose it. Agency is not a passive pronouncement, but a direct commandment to act, do something, achieve, accomplish. Otherwise there can be no experience, no progress, no life.
Thoughts are necessary forerunners to action. If we think good thoughts, we will acquire a desire to do good things, and vice versa.
“In essence, knowledge is an intellectual understanding of truth,” explained Elder Tad R. Callister, “while faith is a principle of action – it motivates us to live what we believe.”
Winston Churchill wasn’t hesitant about many things. But when he took his first art lesson, he gingerly placed a dob of paint on the canvas. His art instructor grabbed the brush, sopped up a goodly amount of the goop, and splashed a bold swath of it across the canvas. His advice to Sir Winston: Don’t be afraid of the canvas. Begin.
As Shakespeare put it: “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
Yoda said, “There is no try; only do.” That may be true if “try” is half-hearted, but he was wrong in the sense of experiment. Did Edison “do” a light-bulb? Yes, but he did many tries before the “done.”
If curiosity can be defined by the number of one’s interests, then the most curious person in history would be Leonardo da Vinci. Among his interests, each at which he invariably excelled, were “invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.” Wonder about everything; follow your curiosity.
Mozart was a restless, prodigious genius. He composed over 600 works – from symphonies to sonatas, concertos to operas – in his short 35 years of life. His own assessment: “Believe me, I do not like idleness, but work.”
To break a board with his bare hand, the karate expert does not aim at the board, but at a point in space a few inches below it. In the process of reaching the extended goal, the original objective is achieved as a byproduct. Set extended goals.
Agency and agenda come from the same root. If you have the former, create the latter.
What would have happened if Joseph Smith wondered for the rest of his life which church was true, but never went into a secluded grove to pray about it?
God gives us moral agency—and moral accountability. Declares the Lord, “I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore [you] are free indeed.”
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
Man has the capacity for pause between stimulus and response — he may choose among alternatives in responding. This is the taproot of individual freedom.
The right of an individual can never transcend the rights of the community.
To bring an eternal, free spirit under the bondage of matter and forgetfulness, it was necessary for some one to begin the work, by figuratively speaking, breaking a law, so that the race might by brought under the subjection of death. This may be likened, roughly, to the deliberate breaking, for purposed of repair or extension, of a wire carrying power to light a city. Someone had to divert the current of eternal existence, and thus temporarily bring man's earthly body under the subjection of gross matter. Adam, the first man, was chosen to do this work. By the deliberate breaking of a spiritual law, he placed himself under the ban of earthly death and transmitted to all his posterity the subjection to death. This was the so-called "sin of Adam." To obtain or give greater joys, smaller pains may often have to be endured.
As the spirits, by their own act has not brought upon themselves death, so by their own act they should not conquer it.
The many must devise laws whereby individual and community progress are simultaneous. It is the full right of the individual to exercise his will in any way that does not interfere with the laws made fro the many; and, under proper conditions, the laws for the many are of equal value to the individual. Under the law we are free.
Yet, it must be remembered that predestination can not be compelling. Man's free agency, the great indestructible gift, always remains untrammeled.
It is most likely that those who, on earth, accept the highest truth of life, find the gospel attractive, and are most faithful in the recognition of law, are those who, in the pre-existent state, were most intelligent and obedient.
Man's inequality comes chiefly from the inequality of earth effort.
We live only as our bodies allow; and, since our bodies differ greatly, there is in them another source of man's inequality. In fact, the inequality of man comes largely from inequality of body, through which the eternal spirit tries in vain to speak.
The equality of man on earth must be the equal opportunity to progress.
In fundamental principles, in gifts and blessings, in spiritual opportunities, as required or offered by the church, men are stripped of all differences, and stand as if they were equal before God. This is equality of opportunity.
The great problem of every age is how to keep together, as one body, the many who, because of their differing wills, have become different in their powers and attainments.
Men must not be judged, wholly, by their attainments, or by their gifts, but largely by the degree to which they give themselves to the great cause represented by the plan of the major intelligent Being, for the minor beings of the universe.
When our leaders speak it is for us to obey; when they direct we should go; when they call we should follow. Not as beings who are enslaved or in thralldom; we should not obey blindly, as instruments or tools. No Latter-day Saint acts in this manner; no man or woman who has embraced the Gospel has ever acted in this way.
We often talk about agency as “the power to choose.” But it is far more than that. Agency is not just the freedom to follow our whims. It is the power to create. Specifically, it is the power to create consequences.
When God evicted Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He said He was sending them into the world ‘to learn by their own experience.’ He designed a system where they could create and experience consequences. He seemed to think it was a pretty good system. He had confidence that when the consequences were painful, we would learn. When the consequences were joyful, we would also learn. Over time we would gain greater ability to create better consequences.
God’s way of teaching is to allow people to experience the consequences of their choices.
When you lecture, guilt-trip, and reason with those who don’t care, you become responsible for their motivation.
Frequently, rather than impose consequences, we yell, cry, guilt-trip or nag. Nagging is a form of control. It is a way of taking responsibility away from the other person. It puts the burden on the nagger to monitor and motivate the other person.
When we remove natural consequences from those we love, we take control of a process that God ordained. We are assuming our own design of the world is superior to His or that those we love are too fragile to learn in His way.
I told him—as we always did—that we would only help if we believed what we were doing would truly help. We were unwilling to rob him of the consequences of his choices. I explained we did not believe it was loving to keep someone from learning.
Moroni wasted little time sermonizing to the uncommitted. When you lecture, guilt-trip, and reason with those who don’t care, you become responsible for their motivation.
Use your skills to work with, and not on, people.
One of Satan’s most crafty strategies to gain control of our agency isn’t a frontal attack on our agency but a sneaky backdoor assault on responsibility. Without responsibility, every good gift from God could be misused for evil purposes. For example, freedom of speech without responsibility can be used to create and protect pornography. The rights of a woman can be twisted to justify an unnecessary abortion. When the world separates choice from accountability, it leads to anarchy and a war of wills or survival of the fittest. We could call agency without responsibility the Korihor principle, as we read in the book of Alma “that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime” (Alma 30:17; emphasis added). With negative consequences removed, you now have agency unbridled, as if there were no day of reckoning.
What an attractive offer for those who seek happiness in wickedness! The Nehor principle depends entirely on mercy and denies justice—a separation of the second doctrinal pair aforementioned. Denying justice is a twin of avoiding responsibility. They are essentially the same thing. A common strategy of each Book of Mormon anti-Christ was to separate agency from responsibility. “Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin” (2 Nephi 28:8).
Faith without works, mercy without justice, and agency without responsibility are all different verses of the same seductive and damning song. With each, the natural man rejects accountability in an attempt to sedate his conscience. It is similar to the early sixteenth-century practice of paying for indulgences, but much easier—this way it is free!2 No wonder the broad path is filled with so many. The path parades a guilt-free journey to salvation but is, in reality, a cleverly disguised detour to destruction (see 3 Nephi 14:13).
THE ANTI-RESPONSIBILITY LIST To illustrate, I want to share a list of things that Satan tempts people to either say or do to avoid being responsible. This list isn't all-inclusive, but I believe it covers his most common tactics. 1. Blaming others: Saul disobediently took of the spoils of war from the Amalekites; then, when confronted by Samuel, he blamed the people (see 1 Samuel 15:21). 2. Rationalizing or justifying: Saul then rationalized or justified his disobedience, stating that the saved livestock was for 'sacrifice unto the Lord' (1 Samuel 15:21; see also verse 22). 3. Making excuses: Excuses come in a thousand varieties, such as this one from Laman and Lemuel: 'How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?' (1 Nephi 3:31). 4. Minimalizing or trivializing sin: This is exactly what Nehor advocated (see Alma 1:3-4). 5. Hiding: This is a common avoidance technique. It is a tactic Satan used with Adam and Eve after they partook of the forbidden fruit (see Moses 4:14). 6. Covering up: Closely associated with hiding is covering up, which David attempted to do to conceal his affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 12:9, 12). 7. Fleeing from responsibility: This is something Jonah tried to do (see Jonah 1:3). 8. Abandoning responsibility: Similar to fleeing is abandoning responsibility. One example is when Corianton forsook his ministry in pursuit of the harlot Isabel (see Alma 39:3). 9. Denying or lying: 'And Saul said . . . : I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears ... ?' (1 Samuel 15:13-14). 10. Rebelling: Samuel then rebuked Saul 'for rebellion.' 'Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king' (1 Samuel 15:23). 11. Complaining and murmuring: One who rebels also complains and murmurs: 'And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and . . . said . . . , Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt!' (Numbers 14:2). 12. Finding fault and getting angry: These two are closely associated, as described by Nephi: 'And it came to pass that Laman was angry with me, and also with my father; and also was Lemuel' (1 Nephi 3:28). 13. Making demands and entitlements: 'We will not that our younger brother shall be a ruler over us. And it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness' (1 Nephi 18:10-11). 14. Doubting, losing hope, giving up, and quitting: 'Our brother is a fool. . . . For they did not believe that I could build a ship' (1 Nephi 17:17-18). 15. Indulging in self-pity and a victim -mentality: 'Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy' (1 Nephi 17:21). 16. Being indecisive or being in a spiritual -stupor: The irony with indecision is that if you don't make a decision in time, time will make a decision for you. 17. Procrastinating: A twin of indecision is -procrastination. 'But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late' (Helaman 13:38). 18. Allowing fear to rule: This one is also related to hiding: 'And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth. . . . His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant' (Matthew 25:25-26). 19. Enabling: An example of enabling or -helping others to avoid responsibility is the instance when Eli failed to discipline his sons for their grievous sins and was rebuked by the Lord: 'Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and . . . honourest thy sons above me . . . ' (1 Samuel 2:29; see also verses 22-36).
Yet, as difficult as a responsibility may be, “difficulty is the excuse history never accepts,”3 as is so graphically illustrated in the case of Laman and Lemuel.
Difficult situations are the test of one’s faith, to see if we will go forward with either a believing heart (see D&C 64:34) or a doubting heart (see D&C 58:29), if at all. A difficult situation reveals a person’s character and either strengthens it, as with Nephi, or weakens and corrupts it, as with Laman and Lemuel, who epitomize what it means to be irresponsible (see Alma 62:41).
It is important to recognize that excuses never equal results. In the case of Laman and Lemuel, all the excuses in the world could never obtain the brass plates. The reason Nephi obtained the plates and Laman and Lemuel didn’t is because Nephi never went to the anti-responsibility list. He was a champion, and champions do not turn to the list. As Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve stated, “A determined man finds a way; the other man finds an excuse.”4
If the anti-responsibility list is so dangerous, why do so many people frequently turn to it? Because the natural man is irresponsible by nature, he goes to the list as a defense mechanism to avoid shame and embarrassment, stress and anxiety, and the pain and negative consequences of mistakes and sin. Rather than repent to eliminate guilt, he sedates it with excuses. It gives him a false sense that his environment or someone else is to blame, and therefore he has no need to repent.
The anti-responsibility list could also be called the anti-faith list because it halts progress dead in its tracks. When Satan tempts a person to avoid responsibility, that person subtly surrenders their agency because the person is no longer in control or “acting.” Instead they become an object who is being acted upon, and Satan cleverly begins to control their life.
It is important to note that everyone occasionally fails in their attempts at success, just as Nephi did with his brothers in their first two trips to Jerusalem when they were trying to obtain the plates. But those who are valiant accept responsibility for their mistakes and sins. They repent, get back on their feet, and continue moving forward in faith. They may give an explanation or a reason for their lack of success but not an excuse. At first glance it may appear that Adam was blaming Eve when he said, “The woman thou gavest me.” However, when Adam subsequently added “and I did eat,” we are given to understand that he accepted responsibility for his actions and was giving an explanation, not blaming Eve. Eve in turn also said, “And I did eat” (Moses 4:18–19; see also verses 17–20; 5:10–11).
What these two employees learned is that when they blamed someone else, they were surrendering control of the shipment’s success to others—such as the seminar division or the freight company. They learned that excuses keep you from taking control of your life. They learned that it is self-defeating to blame others, make excuses, or justify mistakes—even when you are right! The moment you do any of these self-defeating things, you lose control over the positive outcomes you are seeking in life.
As I was praying, I felt a strong impression that I should go to my husband and apologize. I was a bit shocked by this impression and immediately pointed out in my prayer that I had done nothing wrong and therefore should not have to say I was sorry. A thought came strongly to my mind: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?”
In the story, this sister learned that even if she may have been right and it was her husband’s fault, blaming him was counterproductive, causing her to lose control over positive outcomes. She also discovered that there is power and control in the expression “I’m sorry” when it is used with love unfeigned and empathy—not merely to excuse ourselves.
Jesus Christ did not come to find fault, criticize, or blame. He came to build up, edify, and save (see Luke 9:56). However, His compassion does not nullify His expectation that we be fully responsible and never try to minimize or justify sin. “For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (D&C 1:31; see also Alma 45:16). If the Lord cannot look upon sin with even the least degree of allowance, what law of the gospel demands complete and full responsibility for sin? That would be the law of justice.
The danger of the anti-responsibility list consists in the fact that it blinds its victims to the need for repentance. Laman and Lemuel, for example, didn’t see a need to repent because it was all Nephi’s fault. “If it’s not my fault, why should I repent?” The one blinded can’t even take the first step in the repentance process, which is to recognize the need for repentance.
By relying on the law of Moses—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—rather than on the law of the gospel, including forgiving and praying for one’s enemies, Dantès imposed a life sentence of misery and bitterness upon himself. In denying the Lord’s justice for others, he unwittingly denied the Lord’s mercy for himself and chose to serve the sentence that Christ had already served in his behalf. It robbed him of a life of happiness that could have been his but for the want of revenge.
Even though the wife may understand the law of justice, what she is feeling is the need for justice now. Elder Neal A. Maxwell wisely taught that “faith in God includes faith in His purposes as well as in His timing. We cannot fully accept Him while rejecting His schedule.”8 Elder Maxwell also said, “The gospel guarantees ultimate, not proximate, justice.”9 “Behold, mine eyes see and know all their works, and I have in reserve a swift judgment in the season thereof, for them all” (D&C 121:24).
Until the abused woman can turn justice over to the Lord, she will likely continue to experience feelings of anger—which are a form of negative devotion toward her abuser—and this traps her in a recurring nightmare. President George Albert Smith referred to this as “cherish[ing] an improper influence.”12 With her husband having hurt her so deeply, why would the wife allow him to continue victimizing her by haunting her thoughts? Hasn’t she suffered enough? Not forgiving her abuser allows him to mentally torment her over and over and over. Forgiving him doesn’t set him free; it sets her free.
Part of understanding forgiveness is to understand what it is not: Forgiving her abusive husband does not excuse or condone his cruelty. Forgiving does not mean forgetting his brutality; you cannot unremember or erase a memory that is so traumatic. Forgiving does not mean that justice is being denied, because mercy cannot rob justice. Forgiving does not erase the injury he has caused, but it can begin to heal the wounds and ease the pain. Forgiving does not mean trusting him again and giving him yet another chance to abuse her and the children. While to forgive is a commandment, trust has to be earned and evidenced by good behavior over time, which he clearly has not demonstrated. Forgiving does not mean forgiveness of his sins. Only the Lord can do that, based upon sincere repentance.
These are things that forgiveness does not mean. What forgiveness does mean is to forgive the husband’s foolishness—even his stupidity—in succumbing to the impulses of the natural man and at the same time still hope that he will yet yield “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” (Mosiah 3:19). Forgiveness does not mean giving him another chance to abuse, but it does mean giving him another chance at the plan of salvation.
It is also helpful if the wife understands “that we are punished by our sins and not for them.”13 She then recognizes that her abuser has inflicted far more eternal damage upon himself than temporal damage upon her. And even in the present, his true happiness and joy diminish in inverse proportion to his increased wickedness, because “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10). He is to be pitied for the sorrowful and precarious situation he is in. Knowing that he is sinking in spiritual quicksand might begin to change her desire for justice—which is already occurring—to a hope that he will repent before it is too late. With this understanding she might even begin to pray for the one who has despitefully abused her.
God wants men to do good, but he never forces them and does not want them to be forced. He placed in and left with them the power of election. When they do good, he honors them because they could have done evil. When they are coerced, they are entitled to no such honor. God allows men to make their own choices, and he has reserved to himself the judgment as to the correctness of their choices. Free agency has always had rough going, however. Over it the War in Heaven was fought. In the earth it has been abridged by almost all governments, civil and ecclesiastical. Apostate churchmen, kings, and other rulers have from the beginning arrogated judgment unto themselves. They have, contrary to God's law of liberty, preempted man's right, with or without his consent, to determine what would be best for them to do and by every means within their power have undertaken to force men to do their bidding.
But we must always distinguish between God's being able to foresee and His causing or desiring something to happen, a very important distinction! God foresaw the fall of His beloved David but did not cause it. (See D&C 132:39.) Sending for Bathsheba was David's decision, and even her battle-weary husband Uriah's sleeping loyally by David's door was not enough to bring a by then devious and determined David to his senses. (2 Samuel 11:9.) By foreseeing, God can plan and His purposes can be fulfilled, but He does this in a way that does not in the least compromise our individual free agency, any more than an able meteorologist causes the weather rather than forecasts it. Part of the reason for this is our forgetfulness of our earlier experiences and the present inaccessibility of the knowledge and understanding we achieved there. The basicreason, of course, is that, as we decide and act, we do not know what God knows. Our decisions are made in our context, not His.
Perhaps it helps to emphasize—more than we sometimes do—that our first estate featured learning of a cognitive type, and it was surely a much longer span than that of our second estate, and the tutoring so much better and more direct. The second estate, however, is one that emphasizes experiential learning through applying, proving, and testing. We learn cognitively here too, just as a good university examination also teaches even as it tests us. In any event, the books of the first estate are now closed to us, and the present test is, therefore, very real. We have moved, as it were, from first-estate theory to second-estate laboratory. It is here that our Christlike characteristics are further shaped and our spiritual skills are thus strengthened.
Some find the doctrines of the omniscience and foreknowledge of God troubling because these seem, in some way, to constrict their individual agency. This concern springs out of a failure to distinguish between how it is that God knows with perfection what is to come butthat we do not know, thus letting a very clear and simple doctrine get obscured by our own finite view of things. Personality patterns, habits, strengths, and weaknesses observed by God over a long period in the premortal world would give God a perfect understanding of what we would do under a given set of circumstances—especially when He knows the circumstances to come. Just because we cannot compute all the variables, just because we cannot extrapolate does not mean that He cannot do so. Omniscience is, of course, one of the essences of Godhood; it sets Him apart in such an awesome way from all of us even though, on a smaller scale, we manage to do a little foreseeing ourselves at times with our own children even with our rather finite and imperfect minds.
Ever to be emphasized, however, is the reality that God's "seeing" is not the samething as His "causing" something to happen.
Indeed, if God were omniscient and omnipotent and not also omniloving, where would we be? Therefore, our childish concerns over being owned and over being too dependent upon Him would merely be amusing if such attitudes did not carry within them the possibility of tragedy.
Is not our struggling amid suffering and chastening in a way like the efforts of the baby chicken still in the egg? It must painfully and patiently make its own way out of the shell. To help the chick by breaking the egg for it could be to kill it. Unless it struggles itself to break outside its initial constraints, it may not have the strength to survive thereafter.
As one who suffered much in a concentration camp, Victor Frankl observed that the one freedom that conditions cannot take from us is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward those very conditions, grim as those may sometimes be.
President Kimball said, "Could the Lord have prevented these tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not. "We should be able to understand this, because we can realize how unwise it would be for us to shield our children from all effort, from disappointments, temptations, sorrows, and suffering. . . . If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the pre-earth past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective."
Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote, "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted." Such cosmic conservation! He continues, "It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God." (Ibid., p. 4.)
Then President Kimball observed with great wisdom, "The gospel teaches us there is no tragedy in death, but only in sin." (Tragedy or Destiny?, Deseret Book, 1977, pp. 2, 6.)
As to the questions asked—even by faithful Saints—such as, "If what is going to happen is 'all set,' why pray?," the answer is that God foresees, but He does not compromise our agency. All the outcomes are not, for our purposes, "all set." True, God's foreseeing includes our prayers, our fasting, our faith, and the results that will thereby be achieved. But until our mortal actions occur and our decisions are made, things are not "all set." The Father foresaw the Atonement, but the Atonement was not wrought until the very moment of Christ's death when He gave up His spirit, which He had the power to retain.
The time will come when we will thank Him for saying no to us with regard to some of our petitions. Happily, God in His omniscience can distinguish between our surface needs (over which we often pray most fervently) and our deep and eternal needs. He can distinguish what we ask for today and place it in relationship to what we need for all eternity. He will bless us, according to our everlasting good, if we are righteous.
It is through true prayer that we can refine and adjust our desires to those of the Lord's so that we do not "ask amiss." In prayer we can actually learn more than we imagine about His will for us. In prayer we can learn more how to seek the Spirit, so that even our very prayers will be inspired.
There are even those who refuse to follow the Brethren because these individuals have overidentified with a single doctrine, principle, or practice; sadly, they exclude all other counsel, which leads to a dangerous spiritual imbalance. The difficulty with such individuals is that they have a strange sense of justification about that which they are doing. In their intensity they lack, of course, the spiritual symmetry that comes from pursuing, in a balanced way, all the commandments of God. These individuals are so hardened in their devotion to one thing that they are unable to follow the Brethren in all things. It is as if the adversary, upon seeing someone get religious, skillfully deflects their devotion so that it becomes a damaging and not a developing thing. We are responsible for our reactions when we see imperfections in others.
We may, therefore, see the imperfections in leaders in the Church. How we react to these manifestations of mortality is the key to our salvation—not theirs!
It is strange that when one is remodeling a portion of his house, he expects visitors to be tolerant of improvements that are so obviously underway. Yet while one is remodeling his character, we often feel obligated to call attention to the messy signs of remodeling, or feel called upon to remember aloud things as they were. Forgetting is such a necessary part of forgiving.
"The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we "give," brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!"
With the help of two Hebrew scholars, I learned that one of the Hebraic meanings of the word Israel is “let God prevail.”4 Thus the very name of Israel refers to a person who is willing to let God prevail in his or her life. That concept stirs my soul! The word willing is crucial to this interpretation of Israel.5 We all have our agency. We can choose to be of Israel, or not. We can choose to let God prevail in our lives, or not. We can choose to let God be the most powerful influence in our lives, or not.
Through this wrestle, Jacob proved what was most important to him. He demonstrated that he was willing to let God prevail in his life. In response, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel,7 meaning “let God prevail.” God then promised Israel that all the blessings that had been pronounced upon Abraham’s head would also be his.8
With the Hebraic definition of Israel in mind, we find that the gathering of Israel takes on added meaning. The Lord is gathering those who are willing to let God prevail in their lives. The Lord is gathering those who will choose to let God be the most important influence in their lives.
For centuries, prophets have foretold this gathering,11 and it is happening right now! As an essential prelude to the Second Coming of the Lord, it is the most important work in the world!
When we speak of gathering Israel on both sides of the veil, we are referring, of course, to missionary, temple, and family history work. We are also referring to building faith and testimony in the hearts of those with whom we live, work, and serve. Anytime we do anything that helps anyone—on either side of the veil—to make and keep their covenants with God, we are helping to gather Israel.
By choosing to let God prevail, she is finding peace.
When your greatest desire is to let God prevail, to be part of Israel, so many decisions become easier. So many issues become nonissues!
They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Victor Frankl himself was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
Know this, that every soul is free To choose his life and what he'll be,For this eternal truth is given That God will force no man to heaven.He'll call, persuade, direct aright,And bless with wisdom, love, and light,In nameless ways be good and kind,But never force the human mind.
The road back to God is not nearly so steep nor is it so difficult as some would have us believe.
Decision is of little account unless it is followed by action.
In a revelation given through the Prophet Joseph Smith at Kirtland, Ohio, in May of 1833, the Lord declared: "Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come. . . . The Spirit of truth is of God. . . . He [Jesus] received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth; And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments. He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things." (D&C 93:24, 26-28.) There is no need for you or me in this enlightened age, when the fulness of the gospel has been restored, to sail uncharted seas or travel unmarked roads in search of a "fountain of truth." For a living Heavenly Father has plotted our course and provided an unfailing map—obedience
Such was the burden of our Savior's message, when He declared: "For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world." (D&C 132:5.)
Jesus changed men. He changed their habits, their opinions, their ambitions. He changed their tempers, their dispositions, their natures. He changed men's hearts. The passage of time has not altered the capacity of the Redeemer to change men's lives. As He said to the dead Lazarus, so He says to you and me: "Come forth." (John 11:43.) Come forth from the despair of doubt. Come forth from the sorrow of sin. Come forth from the death of disbelief. Come forth to a newness of life. Come forth.
A choice has to be made. There are no minor or insignificant decisions in our lives. Decisions determine destiny. Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in the race of our lives. At stake is eternal life—yours and mine. What will be the outcome? Will we be servants of God? Or will we be servants of sin?
We cannot restrict our thinking to today's problems alone. We have the obligation to plan for tomorrow's opportunities. We are limited only by our thoughts and personal determination to convert these thoughts to realities. Henry Ford, the industrialist, taught us, "An educated man is not one who has trained his mind to retain a few dates in history. He is one who can accomplish things. Unless a man has learned to think, he is not an educated man, regardless of how many college degrees he has after his name."
At times the preparation period may appear dull, uninteresting, and even unnecessary. But experience continues to demonstrate that the future belongs to those who prepare for it. And if we are to become leaders, we cannot skimp on our preparation.
It has been said by one, years ago, that history turns on small hinges, and so do people's lives. Our lives will depend upon the decisions we make, for decisions determine destiny.
Think of the decision of a fourteen-year-old boy who had read that if anyone lacked wisdom, he should ask of God, "that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." (James 1:5.) He made the decision to put to the test the epistle of James. He went into the grove and he prayed. Was that a minor decision? No—that was a decision that has affected all mankind and particularly all of us who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What are the important decisions our youth must make? First, what will be my faith. Second, whom shall I marry. And third, what will be my life's work.
My counsel to returning missionaries and to every youth is that they should study and prepare for their life's work in a field that they enjoy, because they are going to spend a good share of their lives in that field. I believe it should be a field that will challenge their intellect and a field that will make maximum utilization of their talents and their capabilities, and, finally, a field that will provide them sufficient remuneration to provide adequately for a companion and children. Such is a big order, but I bear testimony that these criteria are very important in choosing one's life's work.
Adequate preparation enhances the ability to think and to decide.
The wisdom of God ofttimes appears as foolishness to men, but the greatest single lesson we can learn in mortality is that when God speaks and a man obeys, that man will always be right.
The choices humans make should be active rather than passive. In making personal choices we affirm our autonomy.
The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
Agency is the power to create consequences
No enduring improvement can occur without righteous exercise of agency. Do not attempt to override agency. The Lord himself would not do that. Forced obedience yields no blessings.
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