One of the talks I really liked from last General Conference was Elder Oaks' about desires. He said that "desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions. The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving, and our becoming." I suppose this talk was one of my favorites because one of my favorite scriptures is Mosiah 16:12-13. These verses read:
"Having gone according to their own carnal wills and desires; having never called upon the Lord while the arms of mercy were extended towards them; for the arms of mercy were extended towards them, and they would not; they being warned of their iniquities and yet they would not depart from them; and they were commanded to repent and yet they would not repent.
And now, ought ye not to tremble and repent of your sins, and remember that only in and through Christ ye can be saved?"
Now, the main reason I really love these verses is because of the repetition of image of the arms of mercy being extended to us. As much as we reject the Lord, He repeatedly tries to offer us mercy. Yet, I also like how it mentions the idea of carnal wills and desires. No matter how much I grow in the gospel, I still feel like I have carnals wills and desires that cause me to fall “short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Though, I hope, over time as I continue to repent these carnal ways will become less and less, I think that we will just by the fact that we’re mortals, always have to fight the carnal man within us.
I guess I take hope in the fact that though we may be always imperfect and will continually struggle to purge the carnality within us, we can and must be helped by the Savior. Another favourite scripture of mine counsels us that we should “remember...that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved” (2 Nephi 10:24). I’ve definitely made the mistake of thinking that I could perhaps do it on my own, repent and live righteously without the Lord’s help. In fact, I once told God to let me do it on my own, just to prove that I could. I can tell you that I fell farther and faster away from the Lord as a result.
I have felt that as I come closer to the Lord, through repentance and when I feel the Spirit in abundance, that I “have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2). I suppose it’s a never-ending process, our improvement and progression, and that the desires we cultivate and nurture will determine what we will choose.
