Elder Bennett tells a wonderful story about choosing to swim despite warning signs on the beach. He relates this experiences to the choices we must all make, and in whom we place our trust.
| Choose Eternal Life by Elder Randall K. Bennett |
“In reality we have only two eternal choices, each with eternal consequences: choose to follow the Savior of the world and thus choose eternal life with our Heavenly Father or choose to follow the world and thus choose to separate ourselves from Heavenly Father eternally. We cannot successfully choose both the safety of righteousness and the dangers of worldliness.”
What stood out to you as you studied this talk? Share your thoughts and insights in the comments below. (Only TWO more talks left!)
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Diapers and Divinity 
I think I forgot to comment last week – but I did read the talk. This is a great talk – it reminds me that I ignore warning signs and swim out to far at times from my goals and righteous habits. It is so hard for me sometimes – most of the time – to keep doing the right thing. I get impatient, prideful, whatever because I’m ticked off or frustrated about something. I love these talks, scriptures, Mormon Channel, prayer that remind to hold on, softens my heart and reminds me to take a deep breath and carry on.
“Decisions determine destiny.”
Our life is truly the sum of our daily decisions. I was reflecting today on a choice I made years ago and now, with the benefit of hindsight, wished that I had made a different choice–how might that one choice have altered some important things in my life? But my next thought was that it was too late to change that choice, all I could do was work on where I am now and whatever good things I am trying to accomplish. Like E. Bennett said, where we ultimately end up will be a matter of choice not chance.
I liked several parts of this talk…
“In what we choose to THINK about, FEEL, and DO, are you and I choosing eternal life?” This reminded me of how our actions are greatly influenced by our thoughts and our feelings. We can’t just choose to do good things, we must choose to think and feel good things too.
Also the three points that “our safety depends on…” We must follow insights we receive when we search ponder & pray. We must also follow the guidance of the Holy Ghost and follow the prophets.
If we all tried to be better at these things just think how wonderful that would be for us, the people around us, and the whole world.
A couple of weeks ago, we started going through “For the Strength of Youth” for our FHE lessons. My husband thought it would be a good idea to compare the changes that were made with the old version. We happened to do “Agency and Accountability” this week, and it was great to add this talk to our discussion. It helped show that these really are eternal principles.
I love President Monson’s quote that “decisions determine destiny,” and the reminder from Elder Bennett that it’s up to us to “choose” eternal life. We know what we need to do and become. Agency is a wonderful gift. What good is it if we don’t exercise it?
And I’m also reminded of something I learned from Elder Bednar, that the purpose of agency isn’t to choose what I want, but to choose what Heavenly Father wants. He wants us all to return to him. I’m looking forward to meeting all of you there!
I loved “We cannot successfully choose both the safety of righteousness and the dangers of worldliness.” This is something I am CONSTANTLY trying to teach my kids- that there are consequences that go along with our decisions. We can’t make bad choices and avoid the consequences.
I loved this talk. One of the things he said we might ask ourselves in evaluating our choices is “Am I seeking divine direction through daily scripture study, pondering, and prayer, or have I chosen to be so busy or apathetic that I don’t take time to study the words of Christ, ponder them, and converse with my Heavenly Father?”
That really struck me … if we are not studying our scriptures, pondering and praying, it is because we have chosen to be busy or apathetic. I have plenty of windows during the day when I am not too busy to do these things, so I guess that means that on days when I choose not to spend much time doing these things that I am apathetic. Yikes. I want to do better at really studying the scriptures like I have in the past in my life, not just reading them.
read it! 😉
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