In our church, we have a lay ministry. That means that we don't have paid clergy--instead, we all take turns doing the jobs needed to keep the church running. As part of this, each Sunday members of the congregation take turns speaking in our sacrament meeting. This week, I was one of the speakers. Below is the text from my talk.
Good afternoon brothers and sisters. For those of you who
don’t know me, my name is Shelece McAllister. Today the Bishop has asked me to
speak to you on a great talk by
President Boyd K. Packer called “The Choice.”
Though President Packer gave this talk in 1980, he was speaking to those of us
in 2016 as well. He noted t
hat, “a careful account is kept of these proceedings, and through that
record I hope to speak to those who are not yet born.” That’s us, guys.
President Packer opened his talk by saying, “I fear that when I have given
this counsel, some will say, ‘Well, I knew that already,’ and regard it as
prosaic, unimaginative, even dull. For what I want to say is so ordinary, so commonplace,
that it is very difficult to have it universally regarded as important.”
What does it mean to be successful in life? The world
defines it differently than we do. If you listen to the media’s idea of what
earthly success looks like, it’s easy to believe that success comes from two
things: wealth and fame. A lot of people spend their whole lives chasing after
these two outcomes. But in the end, neither one of these things has anything to
do with happiness. It’s possible to be rich and famous and completely
miserable. It’s possible to be poor and completely unknown and still be
completely happy.
In President Packer’s words, “It is the misapprehension of most people that if you are
good, really good, at what you do, you will eventually be both widely known and
well compensated… I want you, our children, to know this truth: You need not be
either rich or hold high position to be completely successful and truly happy.
In fact, if these things come to you, and they may, true success must be achieved
in spite of them, not because of them.”
The truth is, true success in life has nothing to do with
fame or fortune. We’re not here on earth to seek money or the praise of others.
We are here to be tested and tried, to grow to become more like our Father in
Heaven. President Packer describes it this way, “the choice of life is not between fame and obscurity,
nor is the choice between wealth and poverty. The choice is between good and
evil, and that is a very different matter indeed.”
We first faced the challenge of choosing between good and
evil before we were born here on earth. Heavenly Father created our spirits,
and we lived with Him as His spirit children, learning and growing in His
presence. But we were not like our Heavenly Father, nor could we become like
Him and enjoy all the blessings that He enjoys without the experience of living
in mortality with a physical body.
So Heavenly Father presented to us His Plan of Salvation. We
would be born here on earth, without memories of our life before with Him. Here
we would gain bodies and experience that would help us become like Him. During
our lives, we would make mistakes. We would sin. But our Savior, Jesus Christ,
would live a perfect life so that He could accomplish His Atonement—He would
suffer for all of our sins, all of our pains, griefs, and sorrows—and through
Him, we could become clean again so we could return to the presence of the
Father.
But our brother Lucifer rebelled and did not accept Father’s
plan. He wanted to force all of us to do his will, rather than allowing us our
precious gift of agency—the right to choose for ourselves whether to do right,
or whether to do wrong. Lucifer fell and became Satan.
We were faced with a choice—to choose the plan Father had
for us, or to listen to Satan and follow him. A third of the host of heaven
chose to follow Satan. But we—and every single person who has ever lived or
will live on this Earth—chose to follow Heavenly Father instead. We chose good
over evil.
The challenge of mortality is to keep choosing good over
evil. President Packer said,
“Our
lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices. Over the years these little
choices will be bundled together and show clearly what we value. The crucial
test of life, I repeat, does not center in the choice between fame and
obscurity, nor between wealth and poverty. The greatest decision of life is
between good and evil.” End quote. Heavenly Father has provided us with
many gifts to help us make right choices. Everyone is born with the Light of
Christ, which allows us to distinguish right from wrong. After we are baptized,
we have the opportunity to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost—his constant
companionship helps us know what we should do. In D&C 11:12, the Savior
counsels us,
“put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.”
Heavenly Father also sent His son, Jesus Christ, to live a
perfect life. If we look to His life as an example, we can come to understand
what Heavenly Father wants us to do.
Satan tries to distract us and to dissuade us from doing
what’s right. One lie that he tells us is that the conditions of this test are
unfair. He may tempt us to compare our lives to those around us—to people who
are more successful by worldly standards, perhaps, or to people who aren’t
facing the same trials that we are facing.
For example, in the world, it may seem that those who are
rich and famous are more successful than those who are impoverished and
obscure. But in the New Testament, the Savior counseled that
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24). That isn’t to say that it’s impossible for
someone to be rich or famous or both and still live a righteous life. But it
helps us understand that people who are wealthy or famous are not at an
increased advantage spiritually. In fact, they may have a more difficult time
turning to the Lord than those who are in more humble circumstances.
President Packer describes our challenges this way: “Some are tested by poor health,
some by a body that is deformed or homely. Others are tested by handsome and
healthy bodies; some by the passion of youth; others by the erosions of age. Some
suffer disappointment in marriage, family problems; others live in poverty and
obscurity. Some (perhaps this is the hardest test) find ease and luxury. All
are part of the test, and there is more equality in this testing than sometimes
we suspect."
That last line especially touches me—“there is more equality
in this testing than sometimes we suspect.” I think most of us have experienced
a time when we’ve seen a loved one suffer, through no fault of their own. Most
of us have gone through a time when we ourselves have suffered. It’s easy to
think, “Why me?” or to lament that it isn’t fair that you have to go through
this.
But President Packer’s counsel reminds me—life is more fair
than we think. With our limited mortal perspective, we cannot fully comprehend
the trials that anyone else is going through. Don’t compare your trials to
someone else’s. Just trust Heavenly Father that through the trials you pass
through, you are growing to become more like him.
Sometimes it is easy to be discouraged in our life choices.
We look around us, and sometimes we see people making poor choices who seem to
be better off than we are, even though we are trying to do what is right.
President Uchtdorf shared a powerful story from a time in his life that he felt
this way. He said:
“Every one of us is called to
wait in our own way. We wait for answers to prayers. We wait for things which
at the time may appear so right and so good to us that we can’t possibly
imagine why Heavenly Father would delay the answer.
I
remember when I was preparing to be trained as a fighter pilot. We spent a
great deal of our preliminary military training in physical exercise. I’m still
not exactly sure why endless running was considered such an essential
preparatory part of becoming a pilot. Nevertheless, we ran and we ran and we
ran some more.
As I
was running I began to notice something that, frankly, troubled me. Time and
again I was being passed by men who smoked, drank, and did all manner of things
that were contrary to the gospel and, in particular, to the Word of Wisdom.
I
remember thinking, “Wait a minute! Aren’t I supposed to be able to run and not
be weary?” But I was weary, and I was overtaken by people who were definitely
not following the Word of Wisdom. I confess, it troubled me at the time. I
asked myself, was the promise true or was it not?
The
answer didn’t come immediately. But eventually I learned that God’s promises
are not always fulfilled as quickly as or in the way we might hope; they come
according to His timing and in His ways. Years later I could see clear evidence
of the temporal blessings that come to those who obey the Word of Wisdom—in
addition to the spiritual blessings that come immediately from obedience to any
of God’s laws. Looking back, I know for sure that the promises of the Lord, if
perhaps not always swift, are always certain.”
In closing, I want to share President Packer’s take home message from his talk: “What, then, do we want you to do? Simply this: Be good! Study the gospel. Live it! Stay active in the Church. Receive the ordinances. Keep your covenants.”
I want to bear my testimony that the commandments Heavenly
Father gives us are for our own good. Even when we don’t understand His
counsel, we can trust that He knows better than we do. The scriptures often tell us to become humble like little children. Little children are so humble! They know that they don't know very much yet. That's why they ask so many questions--and they trust that their parents know better than they do. We are adults here in mortality, but we need to remember that we're still little children compared to Heavenly Father. He knows better than we do, and we need to trust Him. If
we obey Him, we will be blessed.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
