Freedom of Choice

(Disclaimer, I generally try to keep my opinions to myself, but this is my blog. So, I wrote this over the weekend but didn't publish it because I thought I'd keep my opinion to myself. So, if you don't want my opinion - don't read it. I won't be offended.)

Ryan and I got to spend some time together last night. It seems like its been so long since we've had a chance to just sit down and talk to each other. But he always has such powerful insights on all manners of subjects that I really enjoy talking with him. So last night we were talking about choices people make based on opinions they've formed. Thanks to a loving God we've all been given the freedom to have our own opinions and having formed those opinions we choose the way we want to live our lives. The world wasn't intented for everyone to live the same way. Ryan even said it's more important to God that we have the freedom to choose than it is for Him to force us to follow Him. Remember it was the Devil's plan that we all return back to Heavenly Father but without the freedom to choose for ourselves. Ryan also pointed out that although we have been given this incredible freedom to choose, God also says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." I just sat there for a minute thinking, hmmm. There's the catch isn't it. We can live our lives however we want. We can do whatever we want. But if we love God and want to live with him again, then we need to follow his plan; his commandments, which aren't so easy. So I said to Ryan, "basically we can choose ourselves, or we can choose God." He said, "Yep".

Of course I've always known this but I don't think it ever came so clearly to me before. So here I've been thinking of some of my favorite prophets and how strongly they've felt about our agency. I've always loved the book of Joshua in the OT. Joshua had some pretty big shoes to fill having been called as a prophet after Moses. Some of my favorite scriptures involve his sincere expressions of fear and hesitation before the Lord and the Lord comforts him and says, "Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest." (Joshua 1:9) Well, Joshua does go forward, in faith, and with great courage. So then, a few years later when his people get all wishy washy and think they need to start worshipping false Gods Joshua reminds them of all the things God has provided for them; delivering them from their enemies, giving them a land with vineyards and oliveyards (that they wouldn't eat), providing them with the opportunites to be industrious and build great cities (which they didn't do), and finally he says (somewhat sarcastically it seems to me), "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

I love that. What a proclamation of devotion. Why is it that we feel it is so hard to follow the Lord? Why do we tend to think that something else can provide us with greater happiness or deeper peace? I don't know. But we are free to choose. Like Lehi said to his sons before he passed away, "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." (2 Nephi 2:27). Ain't that the truth?

So Ryan sent me this quote by Neil A. Maxwell, "My brothers and sisters, the longer I examine the gospel of Jesus Christ, the more I understand that the Lord’s commitment to free agency is very deep—indeed, much deeper than is our own. The more I live, the more I also sense how exquisite is His perfect love of us. It is, in fact, the very interplay of God’s everlasting commitment to free agency and His everlasting and perfect love for us which inevitably places a high premium upon the virtue of patience. There is simply no other way for true growth to occur." I think that's cool. God is willing to sit back and watch us make stupid choices and try to figure things out for ourselves rather than step in with His infinite knowledge and tell us the best way to live our lives.

Our whole country has been based on this principle as Hugh Nibley so eloquently explains, "The Founding Fathers did trust God. They trusted him enough to give back to him and him alone the right to judge the hearts and minds of men. In the eyes of absolutism, our Constitution is hopelessly soft on sinners. Here, heresy, held for centuries to be the quintessence of subversion and the worst of all crimes, does not fall under human jurisdiction at all; people with wrong ideas are expressly allowed to talk about them and even hold meetings; Congress may never declare one religion more desirable than another (Article VI and Amendment I), or one person more noble than another (Article I, Section 10). God alone knows who is really virtuous and who is not. The king may be right some of the time or even all the time, but that, as Macaulay observes in his “Essay on Civil Disabilities,” is beside the point, which, according to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, is that men must be free individually and collectively to make their own choices, no matter how bad. That, as we have seen, is the ancient law of liberty.”

So, I think my point has been made. A little long-winded I guess but that's because I find it fascinating. And even more than that I find myself fascinated by others' paths of discovery. There are so many varying opinions out there. People are thinkin'. Which is good. But how can you ever make sense of it all? Well, one more scripture that has a special place in my heart, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." (James 1:5) That's the key for me. I'm free to choose and make my own decisions in life but frankly sometimes it's confusing. I choose then to ask God, to guide me, to help me, to comfort me, to teach me, because I believe He really does love me and will help me get home to Him, with happiness and in peace with my family, for eternity.