Elder Oaks said “When I say free agency I refer to what the scripture calls agency, which means an exercise of the will, the power to choose. We are here to be tested, and this cannot occur without opposition in all things. If we did not have opposition, we could not exercise our free agency by making choices.”
As Richard Rohr says it, “Clear choice and decision gets you started, aims you on the right course, and then if you stay on it, that very path will open you up to subtlety, nuance, shadow, contradictions, inconsistencies, brokenness, and variance in almost everything.”
What does this have to do with questions and doubts? If we are denied the opportunity to acknowledge that we have questions and doubts and that there’s no shame in having them, we interrupt the natural process of learning and growth that comes with assessing our lives circumstances and determining what we want to do or what decisions to make. We are halting or damning our progress. We lose the sense of autonomy or being in charge of self.
Works cited: (https://www.simplypsychology.org/freewill-determinism.html); (https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-second-nephi-doctrinal-structure/free-agency-freedom); (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5002400/); (https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/lent-with-richard-rohr-decision-precedes-depth/#:~:text=Clear%20choice%20and%20decision%20gets,and%20variance%20in%20almost%20everything)
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