Gospel Principles

When I was a teenager I didn't understand how choosing the right would give you more choices than choosing wrong.  Maybe in a way I still wonder but I just read an example that explained it perfectly.

"Imagine seeing a sign on the seashore that reads: 'Danger--whirlpool.  No swimming allowed here.'  We might think that is a restriction.  But is it?  We still have many choices.  We are free to swim somewhere else.  We are free to walk along the beach and pick up seashells.  We are free to watch the sunset.  We are free to go home.  We are also free to ignore the sign and swim in the dangerous place.  But once the whirlpool has us in it's grasp and we are pulled under, we have very few choices.  We can try to escape, or we can call for help, but we may drown."

I don't think that a lot of people today understand that you are free to choose your action but you are not free to choose your consequence.  Every action you choose has a natural consequence whether it be bad or good.  I also think that today some people try to take care of a bad choice that someone has made so that they don't have a bad consequence.  In my daughter's first grade class there was a simple sign that everyone needs to hang in their house:

Good Choice = Good Consequence

Bad Choice = Bad Consequence