Dropping My Dirt Aspirations

Suppose it's not necessary to make a post on this, but - here it is.

I've decided that I don't want to be dirt.

Dirt has no free agency. It goes where it is told, when it is told. We have the higher responsibility to do what God asks of us because we want to. The greatest gift we have is free agency. The ability to choose our response to any given stimulus. We can decide how good a day we are going to have before we ever SEE the weather report. We can choose to be happy regardless of what comes our way. We can choose to be grateful BEFORE we receive anything at all. It's all up to us.

Because God gives us EVERY thing - the only thing we truly have that is our own is our agency. So it is the only true thing we have to give back to HIM. Think about it. He owns everything else. But for us to say, " I can choose any path I want. But I CHOOSE to follow Christ. I want to do it because it shows where You stand in my life. I choose to be obedient. I choose to believe. I choose to be grateful. I choose to strive to become valiant.

Neal A. Maxwell said:

"So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the alter and letting it be consumed! Such is the "sacrifice unto the Lord...of a broken heart and contrite spirit," (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving "away all [our]sins" in order to "know God" (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him." (emphasis added)