It's easier to keep the commandments 100% of the time

Today I want to share a story Pres. Monson told in General Conference last October. I want to share it because it's about a young man who did something very hard. He chose to obey the commandment to keep the Sabbath Day holy even when everyone around him wanted him to do something else. He chose to be 100% obedient. He chose to keep a commitment he made to himself, no matter how difficult.

"When he was 16 years old, Brother [Clayton M.] Christensen decided, among other things, that he would not play sports on Sunday. Years later, when he attended Oxford University in England, he played center on the basketball team. That year they had an undefeated season and went through to the British equivalent of what in the United States would be the NCAA basketball tournament.

They won their games fairly easily in the tournament, making it to the final four. It was then that Brother Christensen looked at the schedule and, to his absolute horror, saw that the final basketball game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. He and the team had worked so hard to get where they were, and he was the starting center. He went to his coach with his dilemma. His coach was unsympathetic and told Brother Christensen he expected him to play in the game.

"Prior to the final game, however, there was a semifinal game. Unfortunately, the backup center dislocated his shoulder, which increased the pressure on Brother Christensen to play in the final game. He went to his hotel room. He knelt down. He asked his Heavenly Father if it would be all right, just this once, if he played that game on Sunday. He said that before he had finished praying, he received the answer: “Clayton, what are you even asking me for? You know the answer.”

"He went to his coach, telling him how sorry he was that he wouldn’t be playing in the final game. Then he went to the Sunday meetings in the local ward while his team played without him. He prayed mightily for their success. They did win.

"That fateful, difficult decision was made more than 30 years ago. Brother Christensen has said that as time has passed, he considers it one of the most important decisions he ever made. It would have been very easy to have said, “You know, in general, keeping the Sabbath day holy is the right commandment, but in my particular extenuating circumstance, it’s okay, just this once, if I don’t do it.” However, he says his entire life has turned out to be an unending stream of extenuating circumstances, and had he crossed the line just that once, then the next time something came up that was so demanding and critical, it would have been so much easier to cross the line again. The lesson he learned is that it is easier to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time than it is 98 percent of the time."

Why do you think Pres. Monson would say it's easier to keep the commandments all the time than to keep them some of the time? Every time we choose to obey a commandment we make it more of a habit and more likely that we will do the same thing the next time we have to make a choice. This story helps us remember that sometimes it's hard to do what's right and that every time we obey we become stronger. Choosing to do the right thing is a habit I hope you are learning to do every day. I love you!


Here's a photo of Grandpa and me in Egypt last year - with Elena and a sphynx. It's a good thing we went there last year.