Choose to Choose

By Elder Craig W. J. Raeside

Area Seventy

Throughout our lives, we face many daily challenges and struggles. Some are routine like getting caught in traffic. Some are more extreme and can affect our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

For many years I have worked as a mental health professional whilst also serving in various Church leadership callings. As I have sought to apply gospel principles to my professional knowledge, I have found the following four choices to be extremely helpful when we each face difficulties, both large and small. Additionally, these choices can help us to develop the emotional and spiritual self-reliance that will help us to come unto our Saviour Jesus Christ and experience the cleansing, healing, and strengthening power of His Atonement in our lives.

1. Choose your response to your circumstances

Too often we allow the events in our lives to determine the outcomes of our lives. We easily become frustrated at things that happen to us, most of which are completely outside of our control, such as the weather, or if our favourite sporting team loses or, more seriously, tragedies in our lives or in the lives of those we love. But we can choose to be happy, even joyful despite such adversity. This is not simply positive thinking or ignoring challenges. It comes from drawing closer to Jesus Christ.

President Russell M. Nelson explained, “Saints can be happy under every circumstance. We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year! . . .

“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

“When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation… and Jesus Christ and His gospel we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy.”¹

2. Choose to Act

When we were born, we received two wonderful and precious gifts. The first is our physical body. The second gift is moral agency, or the ability to choose between good and evil. This is a powerful tool to overcome distress, despair, depression, and anxiety in our lives. But we must use it wisely.

Exercising your agency invites the Holy Ghost and the strengthening power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ into your life and brings healing.

I would suggest a simple exercise that can bring powerful effects into your life. Prayerfully identify the main challenges in your life. Then read or view the most recent general conference. Note down one or two suggestions from each of the talks that you think might be helpful. Rearrange this list of things you can do from most helpful at the top down to those that might possibly be helpful. You have now created an action list.

Then, intentionally, move forward on one or two of these suggestions at a time. As you complete them, move to the next one or two on your list and so on. In some ways it doesn’t really matter what it is you choose to do from this list. Using your agency by acting brings great spiritual blessings and will strengthen your faith.

Elder David A. Bednar, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has taught that, “Faith in Christ leads to righteous action, which increases our spiritual capacity and power. Understanding that faith is a principle of action and of power inspires us to exercise our moral agency in compliance with gospel truth, invites the redeeming and strengthening powers of the Savior’s Atonement into our lives, enlarges the power within us whereby we are agents unto ourselves, and is essential in inviting inspiration through asking, seeking, and knocking.”²

3. Choose to exercise

Our bodies are temples in which not only do our spirits reside, but also the Spirit of God when we are worthy. Taking care of our bodies can bless us physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Medical research has increasingly shown that regular cardiovascular exercise in which we move the large muscles of our body (legs and arms sufficient to raise our heart rate) for up to 30 minutes a day, five times a week in enjoyable ways, can be effective in managing mild to moderate depression, anxiety, and stress. It also benefits our physical and spiritual health and can extend both the quality and length of our lives.

Of course, individual circumstances vary, and you should seek competent medical advice before engaging in an exercise program. But most people can do something, even getting up from a chair and going for a walk for whatever time and distance is possible.

4. Choose to repent

Not all difficulties, trials, adversity, or illness in our lives come from sin. Much comes from living in a fallen, mortal world. Some even comes from the sins or mistakes of others. But we can choose joy over despair. One of the best and most consistent ways to feel true joy, regardless of our circumstances, is to repent each day.

President Russell M. Nelson explained the meaning of true repentance. “When Jesus asks you and me to ‘repent,’ He is inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit—even the way we breathe. He is asking us to change the way we love, think, serve, spend our time, treat our wives [or husbands], teach our children, and even care for our bodies.”

Further, “Nothing is more liberating, more ennobling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular, daily focus on repentance. Repentance is not an event; it is a process. It is the key to happiness and peace of mind. When coupled with faith, repentance opens our access to the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. . . .

“When we choose to repent, we choose to change! We allow the Savior to transform us into the best version of ourselves. We choose to grow spiritually and receive joy—the joy of redemption in Him. When we choose to repent, we choose to become more like Jesus Christ!”

President Nelson further added, “Repentance is the key to avoiding misery inflicted by traps of the adversary.”³

Additionally, if we have truly repented and been forgiven of past mistakes and sin, then we need to move on, let it go, and keep them buried. Digging up old sins is not a way to feel peace and happiness in our lives.

Testimony

I bear my personal testimony, based on my own experience and that of many others, that our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ knows and loves each of us individually and wants us to be happy and to experience joy in our lives, regardless of the trials and struggles and difficulties He knows we face. As we exercise faith in Him, turn to Him each day in prayerful repentance, use our moral agency wisely, and exercise our bodies and minds and spirits, we can experience the joy and peace that can only come through the cleansing, healing, and strengthening power of His Atonement.