Dan Widdison
Elders Quorum President
We are going through some tough times. Our daily schedules and opportunities to do things have changed. We have to choose how we meet this new challenge. I love the following excerpt from Stephen E. Robinson`s book, "Following Christ". Hard times is just part of the plan.
The Fall of Adam was neither tragedy nor a mistake, but a necessary step in the eternal progress of God’s spirit children, for we had reached the point in our pre-mortal growth where it was time to meet the opposition in a mortal setting, to encounter the evil and negative elements of existence, and to be sorted out according to our response to that opposition. Mortality is the sorting shed. Here some of us will pursue light most of the time no matter what the cost; some will pursue light some of the time if it doesn’t cost too much; and others will prefer darkness. Unfortunately, our real preferences can be fairly tested only on a level playing floor, that is, in a place where light and darkness, good and evil, are both readily available to us equally, “for it musts needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” 2 Nephi 2:11) Mortality is designed to offer those conditions. Mortal life is like an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner, with all the moral options spread out before us, from the pure, the virtuous, the righteous, and the holy at one end of the table, to the abominable, the wicked, the corrupt, and the vile at the other end. Pick what you like; eat all you want; but your choices will unmistakably reveal what you prefer and therefore what you are. When we can have all we want of whatever we want, our choices unerringly reveal our true character. In this analogy, you are what you eat. In real life, you are what you choose. Our choices will get us through this difficult time. The Lord will bless us according to the choices we make.
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