When I was younger, my energy and curiosity got me in to trouble all the time. Slowly, over time, I discovered that if I paid close attention, I had a little voice in me that from time to time would say something to the affect of, “James, this cannot end well.”

Slowly but surely, I started to listen to that little voice. As I did so, something magical started to happen: I stopped getting into trouble! Life started going a lot smoother because I was avoiding all of these sticky situations.

Life is hard enough without making the kind of choices that further complicate our lives. However, part of the challenge is that for each of us, those choices come in all sorts of different packaging. King Benjamin put it this way:

I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.

I believe what Benjamin says next underlines our personal responsibility for this process:

But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not. (Mosiah 4:29-30)

However helpful it is to have church leaders to help us identify areas in which we can improve in our decision making, I suspect that if we were to wait until they gave us instruction to change, at best, we would qualify as slothful and not wise servants (see D&C 58:26-28). Consider then, what we can do to be more anxiously engaged in making good decisions.
Questions to Consider

• What can and should I do to watch myself, my words, my deeds and observe the commandments of God?
• What does it mean to me to ‘continue in the faith’?
• How do I know if I making good choices? How will I know if I am improving?