At the Missionary Training Center where I work, there are these beautiful murals of scriptural characters all throughout the buildings. Each of them has a thought-provoking question to consider in context of the painting. This one is of Moses. The question on the wall next to it is: What role do I have in God’s plan?
A recurrent conflict in my spiritual reflection recently stumped me: If God has a plan for me, what happens if I don’t follow it? What if I’m not “in tune” enough to know what He wants for my life? Will I disappoint Him? Will He stamp a deep red “FAILED” on my heavenly transcript and doom me for damnation?
Earlier this year I made a huge decision to change my major from English to Math (read about that crazy spiritual awakening here). As I look back on that period of my life, I see a struggling Annabelle conflicted about what she wanted to study in college. What I really wanted, however, was for God to tell me what I wanted. If He could just let me know that, I would do it in an instant. I trusted that He knew best, and I searched for that answer.
Eventually, I leveled out and found my niche and discovered that I really wanted to pursue Math. It was a choice that I made because I, Annabelle, wanted to do it–no one else (God included) made that choice for me. So I changed my major. Did I feel like God forced me to do that? No. Did I feel like that decision was God’s plan for me? I didn’t necessarily at the time, but I do now.
There’s a scripture that has illuminated an eternal truth to me: God has given us the gift of free will, and He wants us to use it. The verse says, “Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot go amiss” (Doctrine and Covenants 80:3).
Sometimes we receive very specific answers to prayer, where God tells us exactly what to do. But I’ve found that more often than not (and in my experience with studying math), God allows us to choose first and then confirms our decisions. One of the reasons why we are here is so that we can learn to reason and make correct choices. We are learning. He wants us to be happy, giving His children “according to their desires” (Alma 29:4). As long as we’re worshiping Him every day, we can trust that we “cannot go amiss”–not too far, anyway. We will find that His will isn’t something forced upon us, but something that we find deep within ourselves as we consciously seek Him every day.
I was under the impression that God had one single plan for me locked in some celestial safe that I was expected to decode while blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. I made choices, I worried, I lived in fear that my life wasn’t going according to His “plan.” I’ve since learned that God isn’t up there with a stopwatch waiting for when we finally “get it” and choose His path. He’s with us each step of the way, applauding us for each choice we make and what we learn from it. Sometimes we choose paths that end up being more difficult for us, but He will alchemize any choice we make and turn it into something beautiful.
What He’s asked us to do is simple: “come unto Christ and be perfected in Him” (Moroni 10:32). Our day-to-day decisions, the small ones and the big ones, are vital to our growth. He wants us to find His will, without being told to, within ourselves–to find Him within ourselves. As we trust in our own abilities to choose, we will be able to one day look back and marvel at His unfailing love for us. We will see His plan woven within the tapestries of our lives, our individual choices accumulating to form an image that He beautifies and creates. He. Us. We’re in this together.
Here’s a song that I love that explores the abiding love that God has for His children–it is an individual love, adjusted to fit each of our unique dreams.
xo
Belle
Rings Like a Belle 