Where Will This Lead?

I particularly appreciated President Oaks’ remarks yesterday in the Priesthood session of general conference.  He encouraged us to look to the future in our decisions, saying, “Our present and our future will be happier if we are always conscious of the future. As we make current decisions, we should always be asking, 'Where will this lead?’”  His message was not only that we need to do this for our own lives, but also for those we love: “As we see threats creeping up on persons or things we love, we have the choice of speaking or acting or remaining silent. It is well to ask ourselves, 'Where will this lead?' Where the consequences are immediate and serious, we cannot afford to do nothing. We must sound appropriate warnings or support appropriate preventive efforts while there is still time."  In particular, I believe this is most important for us as parents to consider as we teach and encourage our children.  We have a much better understanding of where their choices will lead to, and so it is our responsibility to help guide and encourage them in a way that will bless them in the long run.  Often they can only see well the present and are overly focused on obtaining what they want now, but we need to be able to see further into the future to help them make the right choices now. 

               The Savior was our perfect example of focusing on the future and what mattered most, and He sought to help His apostles do the same.  In particular, He was always focused on accomplishing the atonement that His Father sent Him to do.  When He alluded to His upcoming death and suffering, Peter said, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.”  The Savior instantly responded with this sharp rebuke: “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:22-23).  That seems perhaps harsh, but the Savior knew that He must absolutely accomplish the task His Father sent Him to do, and He could not entertain even for a moment the thought of shirking from His foreordained mission.  He knew where that would lead to.  The Savior knew that His apostles needed to also be committed to the will of the Father being accomplished, and He emphasized this again on that night when He was arrested.  When Peter cut off the ear of Malchus in trying to defend the Savior so He wouldn’t be captured, Christ responded, “Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11)  Peter, well-intentioned, wanted to protect the Savior and prevent His immediate suffering, not realizing that this would lead to the whole plan of salvation being frustrated for all of God’s children.  But Christ knew, and He was focused on the blessings of the future that would be stem from complete obedience to the will of the Father in that most difficult moment.       

            From the book of Acts I think we see that Peter too did gain the vision of the whole plan of God, and he was able to see the purpose in suffering as a follower of Christ as he learned to focus on the future.  For example, after he and John were arrested and beaten, we read that “they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41).   Later when he wrote to the Saints in his epistles, he helped them to see the bigger picture when they were suffering, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:12-13).  This was a much different Peter writing than the one who had tried to stop the Savior from experiencing any suffering; he now had a vision of the whole plan of God and could put in perspective current suffering in the context of the greater blessings the Lord had in store.  We too need to be able to focus on the future as we make choices that may require something hard in the present, having confidence that where it leads to is more important than the sacrifice it may cause now.