Elder D. Todd Christofferson recently taught, “Sadly, much of modern Christianity does not acknowledge that God makes any real demands on those who believe in Him, seeing Him rather as a butler “who meets their needs when summoned” or a therapist whose role is to help people “feel good about themselves.” It is a religious outlook that “makes no pretense at changing lives” (As Many as I Love, I Rebuke, General Conference, Apr. 2011).
I recently heard a Sunday school lesson that made me contemplate the boundary between our will and God’s. On the one hand, we are told, “...it is not meet that I should command in all things...men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves...” (D&C 58:26-28). “Behold...let every man choose for himself until I come...” (D&C 37:4). But on the other hand, we have scriptures that say, “Wherefore, enter ye in at the gate, as I have commanded, and seek not to counsel your God” (D&C 22:4).
Getting what we want seems to be the goal of most people. Life is a game to get all we can to fulfill our desires. God gave us agency so we can get what we want, right? In General Conference, Elder Scott said, “Your agency, the right to make choices, is not given so that you can get
what you want. This divine gift is provided so that you will choose
what your Father in Heaven wants for you. That way He can lead you to become all that He intends you to be. That path leads to glorious joy and happiness” (Finding Joy in Life, April 1996). Many members of the Church wrench agency out of this context, the reason why it was given, focusing on the me-me-me aspect of choice as if that were the essence of the gospel. As a result, many of us lack the capacity to imagine that the will of God might be diametrically opposed to our own. Phrases such as, “I think God wants _____ for me, because He wants me to be happy,” smack of revelation originating from some place other than heaven. We should not be surprised at all when God’s will conflicts with our own. The following is based on an actual conversation:
“Are you perfect?”
“No.”
“Do you know everything?”
“No.”
“Is God perfect?”
“Yes.”
“Does God know everything?”
“Yes.”
“Then doesn’t it make sense that God would want things other than what you want?”
“No.”
The most amazing thing about this conversation was that the person with whom I was speaking was a parent. Anyone raising kids should have this principle well in hand. The ignorance of children breeds dangerous desires. They want to put their fingers in the flame; the parent wants them to keep their fingers out of the flame; the difference between their desires can be explained in terms of knowledge the parent has, which the child does not. Why do some have such a hard time relating this paradigm to their own choices? “My will forms God's,” seems to be a common attitude. It is one thing to simply rebel; it is sickening and sad when people cite agency as a justification for their bad behavior.
Desires and actions spring from our thoughts, but not just any thoughts—they come from our beliefs. When we awake from nightmares, we are initially fearful. But when we realize that the dream was just nonsense cobbled together by our subconscious, and that an army of donuts has not come to conquer our hometown, we laugh and shrug off the assault of absurdity. But when our beliefs cannot be refuted as nonsense, they begin to generate emotions, which lead to desires and actions. The child who wants to grasp the flame believes it is pretty, wants to experiment, believes some good may come of it, and will act on that belief. Experience will be a swift educator in this scenario; hopefully the damage will heal quickly. The parent will intervene because of beliefs based on knowledge gained through previous experiences. One sees the flame as a toy; the other sees it as a tool at best, a threat if abused. The formula is: awareness--> belief--> desire--> action. If our beliefs are well educated, our desires and actions will have happier outcomes. God knows everything; His counsel will direct us toward the greatest happiness in the long run.
Misinformed beliefs form the cobblestones of good intent that pave the proverbial road into destruction.
Some decisions are trivial. Others are legitimate preference choices about important things. Breakfast, car, career—one may be just as good as the other. Marriage may end up being a similar choice, once all the bad apples are off the menu (“Just pick one!”).
But covenants cast us in the role of waiter to the Lord. He calls, and we give up whatever He wants us to, including things we think of as good or optional. We give up what He asks us for, however much we want it, or feel we are entitled. To expect the Lord to explain why we are prompted to do a particular thing shows a lack of trust on our part. Usually, the answer to why comes after we trust and follow the prompting. “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17).
For our benefit and knowledge, Lehi boils all choices down into two major categories: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.” Now the two categories: “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which 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 power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself” (2Ne. 2:25-27).
Ultimately, our choices funnel us into either of these two states: liberty and eternal life through Christ, according to the will of His Spirit; or misery, death, and captivity, according to the will of the flesh and Satan. We can vet our choices accordingly. “Will this choice lead to more freedom and life and joy down the road, or will it lead to misery, captivity, and death?”
Is that real freedom? If we were really free, couldn’t we choose to do anything we wanted and have the outcome be happiness, no matter what? “Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness. And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness” (Alma 41:10-11). Should God rearrange the laws of physics so we can smoke and not get lung cancer? If actions and consequences were detached, no one could predict the outcome of any act. If everyone were given the opportunity to choose the consequences of their acts as well as the acts themselves, whose desires would take precedence when there was a conflict? Life would be as nonsensical and contradictory and absurd as dreams. The system of laws dictating outcomes of choices also allows us to make choices.
“...ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head” (Hel. 13:38). We want eternal laws rewritten for our convenience.
If we feel prompted to do something that is against our wills, and badger the Lord enough, He may just stop prompting us and let us have our own way. This is how the 116 pages were lost. Martin wanted to show them to his family; the Lord told Joseph no; Joseph “feared man more than God;” and when Martin lost the pages, he and Joseph went through hell. It is a safe bet that going against those still, small promptings from the Lord will lead to misery, captivity, and death. Fortunately for Joseph, the Lord had made provisions for his transgression centuries before, just like He had for Adam and Eve. If we are not smart enough to follow His counsel and actively benefit from His foreknowledge of all things, we can still be rescued by His planning based on said foreknowledge. But why put ourselves through hell?
Mortality is described in the scriptures as “probation.” It forces us to choose between Lehi’s two options. Even refusing to choose is a choice. We are not choosing whether to become subject to anyone’s influence or power; we are choosing whose influence and power we are becoming subject to. There is no fence sitting for accountable mortals. Faith seems to be the hinge in all of this. It takes no faith to crave and give into the snooze button or a donut in the here-and-now; it takes faith to defer those indulgences in the hope of positive results later. The faith of Jesus Christ was awesome, unimaginable—He suffered temptation, but gave no heed to it. Most of our lives are an irresponsible mixture of giving in and resisting. It seems we can have cheap and easy thrills now, and suffer for it later, or we can restrain and refrain now, and reap unseen joy later. Is this the essence of faith, or its main use in mortality?
The source of the two persuading powers is important here: our bodies originate Satan’s power to attract us to evil, the “will of the flesh.” The Spirit of Christ, and our own spirits inside of us, entice and pull us in the opposite direction. We choose which orbit we will be pulled into. The axiom, “the body never lies,” is incorrect in an important sense. Bodies lie to their owners all the time. My body tells me I will be happy if I hit the snooze button and roll over. I know this is false from personal experience; the day goes poorly if I sleep in, and well if I get up to exercise and study. But my body does not know it yet, even after three decades, and it preaches vivid sermons about the warmth and softness of bed and the rigors and hardships of everything outside the bed each morning. The same is true of all bodily appetites, passions, and desires—our bodies present them to us as the road to happiness, whether or not their ultimate ends are some form of captivity, misery, and death.
“See that ye bridle all your passions,” Alma tells his son. My mission president taught us, “The body is a wonderful servant, but a horrible master.” When a cowboy rides a horse, they both benefit. The horse gets guidance from a smarter being, and the cowboy gets transportation. The same is true when the spirit rules the body. But imagine a horse riding a cowboy. Neither benefits, and the cowboy is miserable. That configuration won’t get the pair anywhere.
“Spirit and element inseparably connected receive a fulness of joy.” God is resurrected, has a body of flesh and bone as well as a spirit. We want to be connected to our bodies permanently too, but connected on what terms? “Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created. Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual” (D&C 29:34-35). In heaven, spirit is given preeminence, with the temporal and physical giving way and obeying. This is the pattern for us, if we want to be happy like God. Not prudes or ascetics, but restraining passions to serve us, rather than letting them trample us (and anyone else who gets in their way, as so often happens).
When we whine to have things our way, we not only let our lying flesh run our lives, we also end up asking God to reverse His established order of spirit over matter to accommodate our whims. Instead of God telling us what to do, and we command our bodies to obey, our bodies tell us what to do, and we start couselling God. He gives us materials and good sense with which to build our lives in ways that are pleasing to us, and we are creators, active, free agents, not objects to be acted upon. But let’s not expect the Lord to respect our plans. He has His own, and they are much better, and far, far older than ours.
