Making choices

Well to make a choice we have to know right from wrong and we have to have something to choose between usually good and evil. Heavenly Father gave us our agency. That’s a gift. We have always had the ability to make choices for ourselves, even in the pre-existence we made the decision to come to earth. We chose to embrace righteousness. Making a choice isn’t a hard thing to do. We make choices on a continual basis throughout our day. Whether it is between what we wear or how we react to a situation. But our reaction is a choice. We choose to either react negatively or positively. But that is still a choice. So what choices have we made today? We are constantly being bombarded by Society and friends and family to decide things. To get married, choose a career, to do something with our lives. Which isn’t a bad thing at all but choosing what we want or what is best for us is a different matter. A lot of the time we rush decisions when we really should take a step back and breathe for a minute. I can honestly tell you that I have made decisions without thinking about the outcome. And it kind of just makes life harder.
Being members of the church we are an example to everyone around us. Whether we like to admit it or not, people are always watching our actions and reactions to things. We are “a light on a hill” for everyone to see. And a lot of people have the “my actions don’t affect anyone else, just me” mentality.Well to tell you the truth that’s a load of crap. Your actions never affect just yourself. President Faust tells us,.In this life we have to make many choices. Some are very important choices. Some are not. Many of our choices are between good and evil. The choices we make, however, determine to a large extent our happiness or our unhappiness, because we have to live with the consequences of our choices. Making perfect choices all of the time is not possible. It just doesn’t happen. But it is possible to make good choices we can live with and grow from.Some of our important choices have a time line. If we delay a decision, the opportunity is gone forever. Sometimes our doubts keep us from making a choice that involves change. Thus an opportunity may be missed. As someone once said,“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice.” Strangely, doing the wrong thing often seems reasonable, possibly because it seems to be the easiest course. We often hear as a justification for wrong behavior, “Well, everybody is doing it.” This kind of evil distorts the truth. As Nephi tells us,“Thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.” Other people’s actions do not dictate what is right or wrong. One person having the courage to make the right choice can influence many others to also choose wisely. I have such an experience in my own life. My Grandparents decided to listen to the missionaries and joined the church. My dad is a convert and how richly blessed my life is for that simple choice he made when he was 14. I am eternally grateful for those missionaries. Just think, if they hadn’t made the choices to be worthy and to go on missions how very different my life would be today.