Are We Willing to Pay the Price?

It's time to revisit Elder Carlos A. Godoy's talk, The Lord Has a Plan for Us! Something I noticed in rereading this talk was a pair of pointed questions Elder Godoy asks in the second section of his talk: "Are we willing to pay the price for our decisions? Are we prepared to leave our comfort zones to reach a better place?"

Every act, every choice, has a consequence or a price. Are we willing to pay the prices our decisions entail? Yesterday, I told you that I want to be more righteous. Am I willing to consistently put in the effort to proceed with the almost always difficult and sometimes seemingly hopeless endeavor to improve? Alternatively, I could give up on myself and stop trying to improve, but that choice comes with a price, too. Am I willing to live with the consequence of having to live with a version of myself that's no better than I am now? Every action or inaction has a price. Do we fully consider the consequences of decisions as we decide which choice to make?

Part of our problem is that we tend to be rather short-sighted. We sometimes don't consider the consequences we'll face later if we don't make the right choices now. The other night, it would have been easy to stay in bed and not read my scriptures, and the consequences of that choice would have been too far down the road to realize the connection between the choice and the result. The reverse is sometimes also true. We see the difficulty of making righteous decisions, but we don't always see the blessings that'll eventually come from it.

Or, we may hear of and desire the blessings, but not want to have to go through the trouble of being righteous to get them. We know that heaven is a wonderful place - one that we want to be worthy to live in. We also know of the blessings God grants to the righteous and the joy we feel from doing what's right and having the Spirit with us. Doing good has good results. But first, doing good requires sacrifice. Are we willing to make those sacrifices to get those blessings? "Are we prepared to leave our comfort zones to reach a better place?"

Whether we choose to do things the hard way or the easy way, there are going to be consequences. To be wise, we have to consider not only the immediate results of our choices, but their long-term results as well. Then we need to decide, are we willing to suffer short-term discomfort now to gain long-term peace later, or are we willing to accept long-term consequences later to enjoy short-term comforts now?Both choices come with a price. Which price are we willing to pay?