Stay On Course

This Christmas I call your attention to one of the “players” in the Nativity story. The one I'm thinking about never broke into song with the "multitude of the heavenly host," didn’t kneel alongside the shepherds by the infant Jesus, nor did it bring any treasured gifts like the wise men. In fact, the “player” I have in mind remained at a considerable distance from that special scene—even light years away.

I’m referring to the star of Bethlehem, and here's why: 

In an article written for the Christmas season many years ago, Elder Neal A. Maxwell noted that on the night of the Savior’s birth, God didn’t just wave His hand and make a brilliant star appear out of nowhere. Thousands of years earlier, that star had intentionally been placed in a specific trajectory. By staying on its pre-determined path, it appeared exactly in the right place at precisely the right time. 

Like that star, your “trajectory” through this earth life was pre-determined, including the time and place of your birth. You showed up where and when you did because, as Elder James E. Talmage wrote, "God . . . knows what each will do under given conditions . . . [He] has a full knowledge of the nature and disposition of each of His children, a knowledge gained by long observation and experience in the past eternity of our primeval childhood."

Before you left His presence you told Him that you would do here what you’d committed to Him there. Elder Orson Hyde suggested that we may have even agreed in writing to what we committed to do here, saying,

"We understood things better there than we do in this lower world . . . It is not impossible that we signed the articles thereof with our own hands -- which articles may be retained in the archives above, to be presented to us when we rise from the dead, and be judged out of our own mouths, according to that which is written in the books" (Journal of Discourses 7:314-315).

But here I must point out an important difference between you and the star of Bethlehem. The star didn't have agency to wander off course. But you do. God gave you agency as a test to see if you will use it to keep the commitments you agreed to before you were born.   

So -- are you like the star--staying true to the course you agreed upon? Are you showing up when and where you said you would? Sadly, there are some who, once they get here, become so distracted by the noises, amusements, and influences of the world that their God-given navigation system becomes jammed. This is no accident. A very real enemy desires that you stray off your appointed course and that you "do your own thing." He knows that, just like the star, you have the capacity to make a difference in the lives of others. Knowing this, he will try to convince you to take a detour, to seek pleasure without restrictions. The enemy is particularly effective at persuading many that the detour is, after all, only temporary and that you can always "jump back on the train" whenever you want.

There are others who get sidetracked and lose energy, feeling overwhelmed by life's trials and stresses and because they doubt whether they really have what it takes to "stay the course." Of these Elder Neal A. Maxwell said:

"When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked . . . Let us remember that we were measured before and we were found equal to our tasks . . . When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not overprogram us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear" (Doctrine & Covenants 50:40).

I like very much this counsel from Elder Marvin J. Ashton:

“What really matters is . . . an understanding of who we are and what we’re doing here, and an absolute determination to return home. What young musician, after years of agonizing rehearsal, finally scheduled to debut in a [filled to] capacity concert hall, would, while en route to the performance, stop to join a long line forming at the latest hit movie, forgetting the thousands of people waiting to hear her? What world class runner, after training for well over a decade, would find himself in the Olympic finals, only to stop running halfway through his race to watch the high-jump finals taking place on the other side of the field?

“These examples may seem preposterous—but how much more tragic it is for someone who, equipped with a testimony of the truth and a knowledge of the purpose of life, becomes more absorbed in life today than in life forever . . . more concerned about his or her status and standing in mortality than in eternity” (“A Yearning For Home,” Ensign, Nov. 1992).

Please - stay true to the course you agreed upon. Remember: You gave your word. Straying into the dark and alluring emporiums and arcades of the great and spacious building is not what any of us signed on for.

Stay on course. Be known for doing here what you said you would do there. I assure you that marvelous blessings and opportunities will come your way once God knows that you can be trusted to do what you said you would. Be true.