Begin With the End in Mind

In the first chapter of his new book The Heart of the Matter, President Russell M. Nelson taught that we must “begin with the end in mind” in our lives. He wrote, “Beginning with the end in mind literally affects everything we do. It helps us set our course, outline the steps to get there, and monitor our progress along the way. Having a vision of where we are headed makes the chances of getting there infinitely more likely.” He told this story about a bee on his patio: “One warm summer night, Wendy and I were having dinner on our patio when a pesky bee kept buzzing around us. Though I repeatedly waved a napkin at the bee, he persisted and was fascinated with our butter. We finally gave up trying to shoo him away and watched him land on the butter and gorge himself. Moments later he was dead. In a matter of minutes, this energetic bee progressed from temptation to indulgence and then to death. He succumbed to a distraction that trapped and then destroyed him.” He continued with these words, “The lesson is obvious. Your ultimate safety lies in never taking even the first enticing step in a direction you do not want to go. Do you really want to end up where that first wrong step will lead you? The bee did not want to die. So be careful. Ask yourself when you are taking a first step: ‘Do I really want the end result of this choice I’m tempted to make?’” He summarized in the subtitle of the chapter, “Do not take even one step in a direction you do not want to go.” This reminds me of President Oaks’ recent counsel in general conference to ask ourselves this question when making decisions, “Where will this lead?” Surely part of the wisdom of living many decades is the hindsight of how individual choices have shaped their lives and the need to take the long view in deciding how to act and what to do. We are far too often too myopic in how we make choices, thinking only of the present and immediate future when making choices. We must instead look far into the future to see if a direction is really one we want to take.  

                One of the verses that President Nelson quoted in this chapter was this famous one from the Book of Mormon: “Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us” (2 Nephi 28:7). He suggested that this is “one of the most absurd lies in the universe.” Instead, we must look past the present and make choices based on where they will lead us in this life and the next. This often means not doing what is convenient or easy but instead accomplishing difficult things now to bless our lives in the future. Nephi was a powerful example of this. After two failed attempts at getting the plates of brass that the Lord had commanded them to retrieve, and after Laban had sought to kill them in their attempts, his brothers were ready to give up and did not believe their mission was possible. Nephi declared, “Let us go up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord…. Therefore let us go up; let us be strong like unto Moses; for he truly spake unto the waters of the Red Sea and they divided hither and thither…. Let us go up; the Lord is able to deliver us, even as our fathers, and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 4:1-3). He was determined to go up to Jerusalem and fulfill the mission that the Lord had given him at all costs. It would have been far easier at that point to turn around and go back to the wilderness—what did a book of scripture matter anyway? But thankfully for the Nephite nation and for us he did not give up, and through the help of the Lord he accomplished the mission. About 500 years later King Benjamin commented on the importance of having those records, “My sons, I would that ye should remember that were it not for these plates, which contain these records and these commandments, we must have suffered in ignorance, even at this present time, not knowing the mysteries of God. For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time. I say unto you, my sons, were it not for these things, which have been kept and preserved by the hand of God, that we might read and understand of his mysteries, and have his commandments always before our eyes, that even our fathers would have dwindled in unbelief, and we should have been like unto our brethren, the Lamanites, who know nothing concerning these things, or even do not believe them when they are taught them, because of the traditions of their fathers, which are not correct. O my sons, I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true” (Mosiah 1:3-6). Without the plates, they would not have had the commandments of God. Without the plates, they would have lost their language. Without the plates, they would have eventually dwindled in unbelief like the Mulekites. Without the plates, the Lord’s plans for this people would not have been fulfilled and we would not have the Book of Mormon today. Gratefully, Nephi did not take the easy road but acted in that moment with the end in mind and fulfilled the important mission the Lord had given him. His example and the words of President Nelson remind us that “what we do here on earth matters!” We must choose carefully and always consider what the “end” of our actions is so we can take those paths that lead us to where we really want to go.