Agency - Green and Red Branches

I read an interesting thing in the Ensign the other day. Actually, it was yesterday, wasn't it? It feels like it was longer ago. Anyway, here's what I read: "Our choice in this life is not whether we will or will not be subject to any power. Our choice is to which authority we will yield obedience: God's or Satan's... If it is not one, it is necessarily the other." - Elder D. Todd Christofferson

I don't think I like this doctrine. It seems to contradict the concept of agency. Instead of being free to choose any path we want out of thousands of options, we really have only two options, and both of them are to yield obedience to another.

Picture a tree with many branches. And each of those branches have many sub-branches, and so on, resulting in countless paths leading to countless twigs. Now picture a tree with only two branches - no sub-branches. In this tree, there are only two paths - God's and Satan's (We'll mark God's branch Green and Satan's branch Red).

Not much of a choice, is it? Yet we know that life isn't like that. We know that there are countless options, countless paths. Sure, God advocates for some and Satan advocates others, but many paths fall into a 'grey area,' don't they? Return to the tree with many branches. Mark one branch Green and another branch Red. Leave the other branches Brown. Couldn't we, if we wanted to, follow one of the Brown branches?

Perhaps it's that there's one, true, good path (marked Green) and Satan would be happy with any choice we make, as long as it's not that one. So there's one Green branch, and all the other branches are Red?

I don't like that. I don't like that at all.

Yet, when we seek answers to prayers, sometimes God doesn't answer us, and there are a number of different reasons for that. Sometimes, God trusts us enough to make the right choice even without His guidance in the matter. Sometimes both options we're asking about are bad, so God can't say "do this" or "do that" because He cannot lead us down either wrong path. But sometimes, but of the options are about equally good, so God lets us choose whichever good path we prefer. There's more than one Green branch.

So, let's say you have a tree where half of the branches are Green and the other half of the branches are Red. There are still countless branches and you can choose whichever path you want. But in another sense, there are only two options; you can chose a Green branch or a Red branch. If you're not on a Green branch, you're on a Red branch. If you're not following God, you're following Satan.

Is that true? It makes sense, sort of. But I always thought there was some... you know... wiggle room. I thought that some options were kinda good and kinda bad, or sort of neutral. Either a mix of Green and Red, or neither color (Brown). Maybe some things are.

Let's say that there are some Brown branches on our Half-Green, Half-Red tree. Let's split the colors evenly, so they each get a third of the branches. The Green branches lead to heaven, the Celestial Kingdom. The Red branches lead to hell. Where do the Brown branches lead? The Terrestrial Kingdom? But if they lead there, wouldn't they be Green?

The trouble with speculation is that, even though it's fun, and you feel like you're getting somewhere, you're not actually learning anything you didn't already know. And I don't know where Brown branches would lead.

I think that, for any branch of any color, God either does or does not want you to follow it, so either it's Green or it's not. And Satan would probably encourage the opposite, just out of opposition to God (If it's not Green, Satan will turn it Red). So we're back to having only two options.

Dang it, Elder Christofferson was right. >_<

So, I think I understand it now, but I still don't like it. I like agency. I like freedom. I like feeling like I have a choice. Now I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either I do something difficult, or I fail. Either I follow God's path, which is often harder than it sounds, or I end up... somewhere else. I want a path that not as difficult as God's path, but that doesn't lead to hell either. What I want is now impossible.

Plan B: I want to be stronger than I am. I want to have more wisdom and will-power. I want to be able to follow God's path. In theory, God always makes it possible. He made it possible for me to blog in McDonalds. He'll probably make it possible for me to follow His path. He probably already has. I just wish I had enough will-power to choose the right path and stay on it.