Meridian Magazine :: Can Do Youth: Agency

Agency
By Vickey Pahnke Taylor

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No matter how I slice it, I can’t make you read this article. I can’t make you do anything. Aren’t you glad?

This ‘something’ called free agency is ‘everything’. We fought for it. We are divinely entitled to it, offered it by a loving Father in heaven. We are responsible for it. How we use it is up to us. And it is no one else’s ‘fault’ if we choose to use it unwisely. The responsibility rests squarely on our own shoulders. Each one of us. Individually. Free to choose. Free to learn to properly control the path our life takes. A grand eternal truth is that we may choose for ourselves.

“Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man…Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give.” (President David O. McKay, Conference 1950.)

As we understand it:

*We made a choice in the pre-mortal life to celebrate free agency in mortality
*We chose to accept and work for that plan which was offered by the Savior
*We received the blessing of assignment to a mortal life
*We come to this earth
*We have that agency for which we fought in the pre-mortal state
*We make our own choices – good or bad
*We have consequence for each choice
*We learn to use our agency wisely
*We freely choose (use of agency) to follow the Savior and return to our Father

Understand that “While we are free to choose, once we have made those choices, we are tied to the consequences of those choices.” (Elder Russell M. Nelson) This, dear friends, is the crux of the thing. How we use our agency determines all the other choices that may be presented to us. And each choice is tied to consequence. If we make a choice, we are also choosing the consequence that follows. No wonder the hymn tells us to “Do what is right, let the consequence follow!”.(Church hymns, number 237.) What a great laboratory of learning is presented to us! We come to know that the responsibility rests squarely on our shoulders.

Modern-world thought is sometimes strongly tied to “Do what you want”. “”Just once- come on.” “Just blame (fill in the blank) and do it anyway.” or “It’s my life and my choice. I’m not affecting anyone but me.” This same modern philosophy may encourage parents to let their children off the hook, in the name of keeping peace. Or lifting their ‘self esteem’. The problem with this idea is that it flies in the face of God’s truths. President James E. Faust spoke to the importance of recognizing the long-reaching effects of choice when he said, “Private choices are not private; they all have public consequences…. Our society is the sum total of what millions of individuals do in their private lives.” (Ensign, May 1987, p.80.) How much easier we could make our lives if we understood that ‘having opposition in all things’ (2 Ne 2:11.) does not mean that we have to be the source of that opposition!

So that we can voluntarily return to God, having learned from our own mistakes and misconceptions, we have free agency. No one can ‘make’ us do anything we do not want to do. Our Father in Heaven is no exception. He loves us too much. He respects us too much. He believes in us too much to restrict our right to choose.

One fine day, when we decide we can trust Him and love Him enough to yield that agency to Him- knowing He won’t do anything with it that is not good, right, and progressing, we will have the bright light of understanding come on within our souls. No longer will we want to “Do what we want”, but what He wants. There will be no need to blame anyone for our consequences. Our counsel from Moroni (Moroni 7:15) will ring with new understanding: “It is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil.” Here is the other great truth, then: We come to know that the responsibility rests squarely on our shoulders!