Courage to change

"When you partner with the Lord, he will show you the next steps you need to take — the change you need to embrace — to live your best life.  And when you exercise the courage to take those next steps, you'll find your best life is one that you can't imagine not having."

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Lately I’ve been discussing the idea of living one’s best life.  That’s because I truly believe we’ll have the most joy in our journey when, regardless of our circumstances, we keep reaching for that best life.

Like me, you may have a life far from your ideal.  That’s OK; few people do.  We can nonetheless thrive and not just survive in life when we partner with the Lord.  He can show us the next best steps we need to take in reaching after our best life.  That’s a life He makes so much more out of than we could without Him.  And that’s a life filled with joy in our journey to our heavenly home.

But that path requires change on our part.  After all, we wouldn’t need to reach after our best life if we were already living it.  Some of those changes will be welcome, but others may cause us to hesitate along the path to our best life.  We have concern or even dread about the direction that change will lead us.

In moments like these, we need the courage to change.

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Learn from experience

The only constant in life is change — after death and taxes, of course.  But even those do not escape the throes of change.  As society evolves, we keep finding new ways to die, and governments can’t ever seem to leave tax law alone.

But change is what we want in life.  Without change, how would we ever grow?  How would we ever learn?  How would we ever become something more than we were before?  It’s in the midst of change that opportunity presents itself.  When you take advantage of that opportunity, you move towards living your best life.

While serving my mission in Guatemala, I struggled with constant bouts of sickness.  After about a year of clinic visits and other medical interventions, my mission president decided to send me home.

I remember well the day he asked to speak with me.  After announcing his intentions, he declared there was no dishonor in returning home early to recover from illness and then complete my mission in my own country.  He asked me what I thought of the idea.

I didn’t think about it very long.  I looked him in the eye and said, “President, I have been called by a prophet of God to serve here.  And here is where I will serve.”

Not expecting that response, my mission president admitted an admiration for my faith and pledged he would do everything in his power to keep me in the mission.  Not long thereafter, I was transferred to Belize.

Historically, Belize has been part of one of the Honduras missions.  But for a brief time, the country became part of my mission.  Many of the experiences I had there changed me in profound ways that continue to influence me today.  I can’t imagine having my best mission experience without having served in Belize.

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Meet the change with faith

When presented with change (for example, my mission may end in a way I didn’t imagine), I took advantage of an opportunity to exercise faith.  That choice wasn’t easy, but it brought wondrous change into my life.

When we talk about the courage to change towards our best life, we’re not talking here about change for the sake of change.  We’re talking about change the Lord indicates after we partner with Him.  And in that regard, the courage to change is linked very much with faith and trust in the Lord.

I exercised trust in the Lord when I told my mission president I had no intention of leaving the mission early, despite the pain and depletion of energy my illness proffered.  For all I knew, another year of difficulty lay before me.

Yet meeting the change with faith led to an opportunity that neither I nor my mission president saw initially.  Again, my mission experience would have been something less for me without that opportunity.

When you partner with the Lord, He will show you the next steps you need to take — the change you need to embrace — to live your best life.  And when you exercise the courage to take those next steps, you’ll find your best life is one that you can’t imagine not having.

Partner with the Lord and trust in Him.  He will help you know how to confront whatever change comes into your life.  He will provide you with opportunities to blossom into your best life.  And years from now, when you look back on these moments, you’ll see the Lord really did lead you into your best life.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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