Choice are a big part of this life. Agency is the reason we are here on this earth in the first place. As I reflect on my choices in life, I am pretty proud of most of them. No matter what I have been able to learn something from all of them.
Choices are so important in this life. No matter what decisions we make, there will always be consequences. We will always have a reciprocation to our choices, whether it be good or bad. As we choose the things in life that make us happy we can be led to joy, but if we choose things that temporarily make us happy, they may not bring us true joy, and we may have made a decision that was for the there and then rather than for eternity. People make mistakes. It's human nature. We re NOT perfect. The important thing is that we learn from what has happened and don't let history repeat itself. As we learn from anything that has happened to us in the past as a result of our choices, we can use them to turn ourselves to eternal joy.
Sheri Dew said "there is one thing the power of God and the power of Satan have in common. Neither can influence us unless we allow them to". This quote really hit me when I first read it. It is a choice to listen to Satan, just as it is a choice to listen to our Heavenly Father. It is up to us to live the life we want. It is up to us to find our joy and grab hold of it and just never let go. We CANNOT afford to let others influence our agency if it will cause us to stray away from the destination of true joy that we are trying arrive to. I once saw a quote that said something like "we cannot make decisions without thinking about the affect it could have on future generations", which is something I completely agree with. If you have a way that you want your life to pan out, and you have a way that you want things to go in your life, you can't sacrifice one single choice for anybody who does not have your best interest in their mind.
You will have friends who know what you want and know what you desire and they won't invite you to certain things or tell you certain things because they know what you want in the long run. You will also have "friends" who will invite you to things and tell you things in situations that you don't want to be in and they know that, but they do it anyway because they have their best interest in mind. These "friends" do not have an eternal perspective in life and they want to live by the temporal things that this world has to offer. They have chosen to make a choice in the direction of Satan. But you don't have to. If you have, you an repent. You can fix it. The important thing is that you analyze everything you do, and ponder if it will better your life. Ask yourself, Will this choice make my life better?
We always listen to Troy Dunn on family car rides. He has one talk entitle "Life is a Football Game". In this talk he says something that has always stuck with me. He said something to the effect of "when you go to make a decision, think of your future kids watching on the big screen (he states earlier in the talk that we once were all in heaven in the 'locker room' waiting to get into the 'big game'. Watching our parents from up above, just as our kids are watching us) are they going to be saying 'Hey! Look! That's my mom/dad!!" or are they going to be sitting there ashamed saying "What are you doing?! You're running to the wrong end-zone"!
The point is, make decisions now, so that you can get to where you want to be later in life. I am not saying it is easy, but I am saying that it will be worth it. If we can power through our temptations, and get to where our Heavenly Father wants us to be (even including repentance. Repentance is such an AMAZING gift that the Savior gave us, knowing we were going to have to use it every single day of our lives) we will be so much further in life. We will be able to find TRUE "joy in the journey".
President Hinckley once said "The course of our lives is not determined by great, awesome decisions. Our direction is set by the little day-to-day choices which chart on the track on which we run". It is the little choices in day to day life that allow us to be able to feel true joy in our lives.
The atonement and the gospel is such a wonderful thing. We can come to find true joy as we make choices that bring us closer to our Heavenly Father. Everybody makes mistakes, but everybody has the opportunity to repent. Everyone has the ability to "try a little harder to do a little better". We have to trust ourselves. We have to allow ourselves to meet our full potential in order to find the true joy that Heavenly Father has in store for us. We have to trust our instincts and be able to decide to do what is best for us and our future. We have to do what will eternally make us happy rather than temporally because even if something makes you temporally happy, that happiness ends, where eternal joy, is for eternity.
I am not saying that there aren't going to be trying times, or times where you feel sadness or depression, and I am not saying that that is a choice. I am simply saying that life can be made more full of joy if we are on the path of righteousness.
As this person that is extremely close to me and I have discussed joy, we have come to realize that joy is all our Heavenly Father wants for us. He wants us to live with him again and be joyous, and honestly, who doesn't want that for themselves?
Love,
MaShayla
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