"There is good reason to make our decision now to serve the Lord. On this Sunday morning, when the complications and temptations of life are somewhat removed, and when we have the time and more of an inclination to take an eternal perspective, we can more clearly evaluate what will bring us the greatest happiness in life. We should decide now, in the light of the morning, how we will act when the darkness of night and when the storms of temptation arrive.
"I pray that we will have the strength to decide now to do what we ought to do. I pray that we will decide now to serve the Lord."
- Howard W. Hunter, "Commitment to God," General Conference October 1982
Click here to read or listen to the full talk
There's an important concept that will bless us once we discover it: some critical decisions can be resolved in advance in our lives. I remember from my youth hearing President Kimball teach this principle:
"We can push some things away from us once and have done with them! We can make a single decision about certain things that we will incorporate in our lives and then make them ours—without having to brood and redecide a hundred times what it is we will do and what we will not do.It's a timeless principle. President Hunter gives additional specific suggestions on how to implement it:
"Indecision and discouragement are climates in which the Adversary lives to function, for he can inflict so many casualties among mankind in those settings. … If you have not done so yet, decide to decide!"
(Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Report, Apr. 1976, 70)
I love President Hunter's suggestion to take advantage of a quiet Sunday morning (the time when he was offering this conference talk) to make that kind of commitment. In the peacefulness of our own pondering, with as much of "the complications and temptations of life" pushed away, we can commit to do the things that will "bring us the greatest happiness in life."
(Compilation and commentary by David Kenison, Orem, Utah, 2018)
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