We Have The Ability to Choose

Elder Robbins gives a great talk about “why Satan makes us believe that we are victims of an emotion that we cannot control.” In his talk he talks about the family and how it is central to the creators plan, but that Satan’s primary focus is to destroy the family. The family is his target and he will try everything in his power to damage it. In 3 Nephi, 11:29 it says, “For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not with me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.” Satan’s strategy is to stir up anger between family members which can cause families to tear apart.

Something that I thought that was important about what Elder Robbins shares is when he says, “becoming angry is a conscious choice, a decision; therefore, we can make the choice not to become angry. We choose!” I love that he says this because yes we can be tempted by Satan, but it is our choice if we want to choose to be angry or not. When we are angry with our family members, it gives Satan the chance to try and turn us against our family members. It will be harder for Satan to try and destroy the family if we choose to not give him the chance to do so. I have seen Satan tear family members that I care about apart and things between their family will never be the same. An example is when my aunt and uncle chose to turn away from each other and got a divorce. My uncle got their children to turn away from my aunt and then my aunt was all alone. She didn’t even have her children for a couple years. Even though it has been a couple years since they have been divorced, their family is not close with anyone. My cousins don’t know how their siblings are doing or even how their parents are doing sometimes. They haven’t seen each other in a couple years and it’s hard to see how Satan was able to tear their family apart. It’s important to do things as a family that will make it hard for Satan to take over like do family scripture study and family prayer together every day or have Family Home Evening. Things like that can strengthen the family to be strong against the anger that Satan wants us to have.

There is another thing I love that Elder Robbin shares. He talks about the doctrine that such things should be done away and not to stir up the hearts of men with anger towards one another. He says “this doctrine or command from the Lord presupposes agency and is an appeal to the conscious mind to make a decision. The Lord expects us to make the choice not to become angry.” We are given agency from the very start and we chose to come to this world and be a part of Heavenly Fathers plan. With agency, we can choose to not become angry and build a strength in many ways for the family. I am grateful for the strength that my family has and how we choose to not be filled with anger. We choose to turn towards one another instead of against each other.