We can make life decisions and have confidence that we aren’t messing up God’s plan for us.
As millennials and young adults, we have a lot of important decisions to make at this point in our lives: what to study, where to work, whom to date, where to live . . . the list goes on and on. In her lds.org/blog post “You’re Not Messing Up God’s Plan for You,” fellow millennial Ariel Szuch reflects on the pressures she has felt as she has had to make these decisions: “I’ve wondered if I was messing up God’s plan for me. I’ve agonized over making THE RIGHT CHOICE.”
We know that because there is opposition in all things, some choices will be better than others. But Szuch discovered that we shouldn’t panic over making “the right choice” because there isn’t only one choice God wants us to make. God’s plan for us is designed so that we can make decisions and still find the happiness he wants for us.
In her post, Szuch shares three lessons she has learned as she has reconciled her personal decisions with God’s plan for her life:
- Use your agency. Szuch points out that “God does not dictate every choice we make” because he intends for our lives to be a time of learning and “joyful discovery.” She testifies that when we “move forward with confidence” and “act in accordance with [our] righteous desires, counseling with God along the way,” we can know we’re following his plan for us.
- Trust in God’s plan for you. Sometimes we do receive clear impressions about God’s plan for us, but we may not want to follow those promptings because of fear or discomfort. Szuch reminds us that God is “always trying to give [us] what [we] really, truly want. But it is always, always [our] choice.”
- Jesus Christ is the way. If we want a model for what our path should look like, God provided an example for us: Jesus Christ lived the way we all need to live to return to God and become like him. That is God’s plan for all of us. As long as we continue repenting and exercising faith in Christ, we know we are “following the plan” for us.
Whenever we panic about making “the right choice,” Szuch encourages us to remember this: “Me learning is the plan. Me changing is the plan.”
Read more of Ariel Szuch’s lds.org/blog post “You’re Not Messing Up God’s Plan for You.”
Source: lds.org/blog
—Stephanie Fudge, Mormon Insights
feature image by jad limcaco
Find more insights
Read Abby Pace’s Mormon Insights article “Discover Your Own Path: Steps from Jesus Christ’s Young-Adult Years,” an article that highlights how Christ had to find his way as a young adult too.
Look at Karee Brown’s Mormon Insights article “What Should I Do?” for more about gaining confidence in making the right decisions for your life.
I like how you point out that there isn’t one right choice. It kind of reminds me of President Uchtdorf’s good, better, and best talk because he also talks about the diffrent choices we can make. We do have lots of different things we can choose, and God will make sure that it works out as long as we do make righteous decisions.
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