Decision Making - When our Strengths Become our Downfall

“Personal decision making is one of the sources of the growth we are meant to experience in mortality. Persons who try to shift all decision making to the Lord and plead for revelation in every choice will soon find circumstances where they pray for guidance and don’t receive it. For example, this is likely to occur in those numerous circumstances where choices are trivial or where either choice is acceptable. We should study things out in our minds, using the reasoning powers our Creator has placed within us. Then we should pray for guidance and act upon it if we receive it, and upon our own best judgment if we do not.”

Dallin H. Oaks, “Our Strength Can Become Our Downfall,” Fireside of BYU Stakes, 7 June 1992, pp. 3–4.

Lot's Wife

"It isn't just that she looked back — she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future," he said. "That, apparently, was at least part of her sin."

"We remember that faith is always pointed toward the future — faith always has to do with blessing and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives," he said. "So a more theological way to talk about Lot's wife is to say she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord's ability to give her something better than she had. Apparently, she thought — fatally as it turned out — that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind."

Elder Jeffery R. Holland, BYU Devotional, January 13, 2009

Joy in the Journey

Day by day, minute by minute, second by second we went from where we were to where we are now. The lives of all of us, of course, go through similar alterations and changes. The difference between the changes in my life and the changes in yours is only in the details. Time never stands still; it must steadily march on, and with the marching come the changes.

This is our one and only chance at mortal life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and non-existent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now.

President Thomas S. Monson, General Conference, Saturday Morning Session, October 2008

Decisions Determine Destiny

Now we see coming into focus the responsibility to choose, that inevitable crisis at the crossroads of life. He who would lead you down waits patiently for a dark night, a wavering will, a confused conscience, a mixed-up mind. Are you prepared to make the decisions at the crossroads?

I can’t stress too strongly that decisions determine destiny. You can’t make eternal decisions without eternal consequences.

Decisions Determine Destiny,President Thomas S. Monson,
First Counselor in the First Presidency, CES Fireside for Young Adults
• November 6, 2005 • Brigham Young University

Finding Weakness in Leaders

Brigham Young said of Joseph Smith, "Though I admitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Joseph was a human being and still subject to err, still it was none of my business to look after his faults....He was called of God; God dictated him, and if He had a mind to leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no business of mine....He was God's servant, and not mine."

Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses,4:297 quoted in Oaks, "Criticism," 72.

Stephen L. Richards on Humanizing Heros

"If a man of history has secured over the years a high place in the esteem of his countrymen and fellow men and has become imbedded in their affections, it has seemingly become a pleasing pastime for researchers and scholars to delve into the past of such a man, discover, if may be, some of his weaknesses and then write a book exposing hitherto unpublished alleged factual findings, all of which tends to rob the historic character of the idealistic esteem and veneration in which he may have been held through the years."

Russel M. Nelson, "Truth-and More" Ensign,Jan. 1986

Elder Neal A. Maxwell on Idolizing

"We must be careful...not to canonize [our role] models as we have some pioneers and past Church leaders-not to dry all the human sweat off them, not to put ceaseless smiles on their faces, when they really struggled and experienced agony. Real people who believe and prevail are ultimately more faith-promoting and impressive than saccharine saints with tinsel traits."

Bruce C. Hafen, A Diciples Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000)