“The Changes We Do—and Don’t—Want to Face,” Liahona, July 2023.
Young Adults
The Changes We Do—and Don’t—Want to Face
What’s your long-term goal? If you know what you’re aiming for, you’ll be prepared, and even excited, to make changes in your life.
Have you ever had to make a change that you didn’t really have the motivation to make? Or a change that you weren’t expecting you would need to make?
About 15 years ago my doctor told me that I had to make a lifestyle change: “Start being more active, or you won’t live very long,” he told me. I took his warning seriously. I decided to start running.
To make this lifestyle change successful, I needed to keep the long view in mind because if I only had the short view, I wasn’t going to get very far.
My long view is a recurring goal to run one marathon each year. This goal helps me get up and run every day because I know that on one certain day next year, I’m going to have to run 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers). I stay disciplined to train and meet my short-term goals each week because I know they’re getting me ready for race day.
Sometimes there are things that try and stop me, like the weather. Maybe it’s too hot or too cold outside, or maybe it’s raining. So I have to run inside on the treadmill, even though I significantly prefer to run on the street. Injuries also try and stop me. Maybe I didn’t stretch properly before my run, so I tweak my hamstring. Or maybe it’s not necessarily my fault that I got injured. But no matter how it happens, I can’t give up because I know I’m going to be running a marathon next year. So I make alterations to my training. I recover and get back out running.
Running has taught me a lot about the gospel. We all have a long-term gospel goal to endure to the end and achieve exaltation. But we set short-term goals like taking the sacrament at church each week that help us get there. We get spiritually injured when we make mistakes. But we don’t give up. We repent, and we get back out there. The only way we can achieve our long-term goal is by making little changes all along the way to help us stay on track.
Choosing to Change
For over a decade, I worked as the senior vice president for Walmart in Brazil. My family was financially stable, I enjoyed my job, and life was good. But the job was demanding. It required me to travel a lot, which was interfering with our family and with my Church service. After 11 or 12 years, it was becoming too much.
My wife and I counseled together and proposed that I leave this job. We talked it through with our children, and together we said, “It’s time for us to make a change.”
When I quit, I plummeted from senior vice president to unemployed. It took nearly a year to find and accept another job. When I finally took a position with a small real estate company in the United States, I felt good about it. This job would let me dedicate more time to the things that really mattered.
But other people told me I was crazy. Why leave a stable job for a real estate company no one has even heard of? And move halfway across the world to the United States?
They were right that this was a huge change we were choosing to make. But they were wrong that it was a poor choice.
It took a lot of faith for us to switch jobs and move to a new country, but the Lord took care of us. And I had more time to fulfill my responsibilities as a husband, father, and ward member.
I believe change is mandatory for achieving our potential. We will never become what Heavenly Father wants us to become if we’re stationary in our lives. And we become like Him as we make deliberate changes in faith.
Forced to Change
Another big change that happened in my family was when my youngest brother died in a car accident. We didn’t choose or want that for him or for us, and it’s still painful, even after 10 years. Forced change is never easy.
But the changes we don’t choose can also become opportunities to build our faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It’s easy to stay faithful when things are going our way. But can we keep the faith and keep going when the changes don’t fall in our favor?
Divorce, infertility, unemployment, illness, and other painful experiences like these are not experiences we hope and plan for. They can make us feel like life is happening outside of our control. But that’s not entirely true—amid your unsolicited circumstances, there are still things you can control. You can set small goals, even just the goal to get through one more day. You can do it! You can bear all things with patience! (see Alma 38:4).
Joseph of Egypt is a perfect example of this. His life was full of forced change—he lost his freedom twice! (Once when his brothers sold him into slavery, and again when Potiphar put him in jail.) But Joseph didn’t break down because his circumstances were undesirable or unplanned for. He adapted and grew through his experiences. And in the end, he saved his family and an entire nation. The Lord was molding him and preparing him the entire way (see Genesis 37–46).
It’s hard to be patient when forced change upsets your plan, but remember that the long-term goal is to achieve exaltation. Heavenly Father knows what we need to get there: “Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected” (Doctrine and Covenants 67:13).
Change Helps Us Become Like the Savior
Heavenly Father loves you and wants you to succeed. He wants you to be happy. And He’s laid out a plan for you to achieve both of those things.
When I see mortality for what it’s meant to be—training—the changes in my life become more purposeful. Change helps me achieve my long-term goal, which is to become like my Savior Jesus Christ. I know Heavenly Father shares the same long-term goal for me and for all His children. Just like my doctor knew I needed to change something for the sake of my health, God clearly sees the changes we need to make to become like Him. He supports us and supplies resources like the scriptures, a local congregation, and a living prophet to help us in our quest to change for the better.
On the hardest days—those days when it’s hard to get out of bed and put on your running shoes, when you know you need to repent, or when you are struggling with some other unexpected change—we remind ourselves of God’s infinite love and of His desire for us to be even happier than we are right now.
That reminder gives us the strength to make the changes the Spirit prompts us to make. And it helps us trust that the unexpected changes we’re forced to make are part of His plan for our greatest happiness.