You know, when you're read the scriptures over and over again - each time you gain a new perspective, and perhaps with what your current journey is in your life. That is what I love about going to these classes at church, I gain new insight each time.
I wrote some notes down on this subject, and although I don't think I am even going to hit the exact feeling that I felt, I am certainly going to try.
First, just a little food for thought... How have you looked at freedom to choose? Is it just something that has been placed before us just because, just because it is there? Is there really any meaning behind it?
My first initial though to freedom of choice is that it can give us the opportunity to be strengthened.
More food for thought... God didn't just give us the gift of free agency so we could tamper with it so to speak. Of course, we'll all make mistakes throughout our life, but we have the opportunity to make the better decision. It is a gift, because if we choose to live a righteous life, we will indeed be led back to God. Free agency is literally a principle, a guideline for us to return home to him again. And within that journey, we will have happiness, we will have contentment & peace, the spirit will radiate from within us to others...
It is not a secret that when one makes bad decisions, that their happiness diminishes. What are some things that you have seen to others, or that you remember happening to yourself when you've made a poor choice? The spirit within tends to diminish within. It is just a natural consequence, a spiritual consequence to our poor decisions. The more we make, the less freedom we have. The more we make, the easier it is to fall further.
If you thought of making every choice in this context - wouldn't it make a difference in what you would choose? Our choices can bring us liberty and eternal life by following Jesus Christ or our choices can lead/bring us to captivity and death by following Satan. I think some people think they made a choice by not taking on the responsibility of actually choosing (the gray area.) But, taking on the responsibility is a great blessing. God expects and hopes that we choose to come unto him - that all our choices would lead us to Him. When we make our choices to get closer to God - we not only have happiness, we receive blessings. When we make choice that lead us away from God - we have nothing to joyful to gain. There is misery, we are lost, we have natural consequences that follow.
We all have the ability to be proactive.
Agency is an eternal principle.
Agency is a necessary part of the plan of salvation. Without this gift, we would have been unable to show our Heavenly Father (God) whether we would do all that he commanded us. WE are responsible for our actions. When we choose to live according to God's plan for us, our agency is strengthened. Right choices increase power to make right choices. We grow in wisdom and strength of character. Our faith increases and we find it easier to make right choices.
When we follow the temptations of Satan, we limit our choices.
From the Gospel Principles book, page 23 it has a great example of how this all works...
"...Imagine seeing a sign on the seashore that reads: "Danger---whirlpool. No swimming allowed here." We might think that is a restriction. But is it? We still have many choices. We are free to swim somewhere else. We are free to walk along the beach and pick up seashells. We are free to ignore the sign and swim in the dangerous place. But once the whirlpool has us in its grasp adn we are pulled under, we have very few choices. We can try to escape, or we can call for help, but we may drown.
Even though we are free to choose our course of action, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. The consequences, whether good or bad, follow as a natural result of any choice we make.
Heavenly Father has told us how to escape the captivity of Satan.... See 3 Nephi 18:15 & 1 Corinthians 10:13)
God's commandments direct us away from danger and toward eternal life."
Sin and ignorance interfere with agency and prevent us from receiving blessings from God. Repentance and righteous living free us from the bondage of sin.
Food for though... Do you live your life in a way that reflects the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Here are some other quotes I ran across....
"Why does God, if He truly loves his children, permit Satan to tempt us and thereby jeopardize our chances to gain the experiences of mortality and return back to enjoy eternal life in His presence? The answer is given by a great prophet-teacher: 'Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one [which is evil] or the other [which is good]' (2 Nephi 2:16). You think about that for a moment. If there were no opposition to good, would there be any chance to exercise your agency or right to choose? To deny you that privilege would be to deny you the opportunity to grow in knowledge, experience, and power. God has given laws with penalties affixed so that man might be made afraid of sin and guided into paths of truth and duty (see Alma 42:20)." — "The Teachings of Harold B. Lee"
"When we become conscious of the fact that there is no time limit upon the saving principles and powers of the Gospel but that they may be drawn upon to meet the problems of today and tomorrow, as well as of the Hereafter, we will then become the people who will be the light of the world." — "Conference Report," October 1941, p. 110
"May the Lord put within each of us the determination to put our lives in order, to the end that we too may know with a 'certainty that succeeds doubt' that God does live, and that through the glorious mission of our Lord and Savior, we too can live again in that realm where God and Christ dwell -- to obtain which is to attain eternal life." — "Conference Report," April 1969, p. 133
"Next to life itself, free agency is God's greatest gift to mankind, providing thereby the greatest opportunity for the children of God to advance in this second estate of mortality." — Harold B. Lee, "Stand Ye in Holy Places," [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974], p. 235
"Life’s Challenges Remember as you try to get through the challenges that life brings, making good decisions is important. We must always remember that the tough choices we make and struggle with, builds character. The ability to make the correct choice can either be won or lost, in the battlefield of your own mind. The plan of agency creates opportunity for us to make our own decisions, having opposition in all things. "
"If pain and sorrow and total punishment immediately followed the doing of evil, no soul would repeat a misdeed. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good and not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency. . . . There would also be an absence of joy, success, resurrection, eternal life, and godhood." Spencer W. Kimball - Oct. Gen. Conf 2004
""If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God or posses the principles that God possesses, for if we are not drawing towards God in principle, we are going from him and towards the devil."" Joseph Smith - Teaching of the prophet Joseph Smith
"Choosing to do what the Lord has defined as right will, in the long run, always lead to the best outcomes." Richard G. Scott - Ensign, Nov. 1998, 69
Like everyone else, I am not perfect, I make mistakes - and we continually to do so throughout our lives. But, we can always -- ALWAYS get out of the rut we may be in and choose a better way. What a great blessing that is to all of us! Very inspirational if you ask me!
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