We have the power to make our own choices but we don’t have the power to choose the consequences of those choices.
If your life is not what you want do you realize that it’s because of the choices you’ve made? Life doesn’t just happen to us. Life is a result of the choices we make.
This is personal empowerment. It’s given to us by God and no person or organization can take it away from us. Even when they try we still have the power of choice as Victor Frankl explains so well in Man’s Search for Meaning of his experience in a Nazi concentration camp.
If you feel that you don’t have control in your life it’s because you are mistaking the consequences of your choices as your actual choices. The way to control the consequences is by controlling your choices.
For example suppose you are out of money and don’t feel healthy. You might feel like that is just what life has dished out to you and there is nothing you can do about it.
On closer examination though it turns out that you choose to eat fast-food every day. You are free to make that choice. The consequence however is guaranteed. You will be out of money because the food is expensive and you’ll be unhealthy because the food is bad for your body.
We make decisions every day. It’s a wonderful power to have. But we need to use it wisely. In fact we can consciously use our power of choice as a tool to get what we want but we can’t change the consequences. So make the choices that result in the consequences you desire.
Our ultimate destiny is determined by how we wield the power of choice, which we all have. As Lehi said to Jacob, we can choose liberty and eternal life or captivity and eternal death. Which will it be? Use the power wisely.
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