Nothing too deep...

The day after Christmas I drove to the temple searching for some kind of relief from my misery over Elle's death. I always feel stronger and more at peace there, and I prayed for some kind of additional understanding and more happiness to balance out my sadness. Back at home in my closet, those debilitating thoughts started parading across my mind again, but this time in response I felt a presence and a warm feeling of comfort enfold me.

Later on I thought about agency and God's role in our lives. Nothing too deep ;) As I read more from Elder Nelson's book, "The Gateway We Call Death," I realized the distinction I've long felt in my heart but couldn't quite put into words. He said the term "free agency" is not found anywhere in the scriptures, only the term "moral agency." So, (back to my thoughts) what I believe is that God won't prevent us from using our moral agency, our ability to choose between right and wrong—although He will influence us to choose good over evil when we are worthy of the Spirit. But I think the term "free agency" confuses us into believing that God won't and can't interfere with any choice we make, even when it is not a moral choice. So, God won't intervene in our choices between right and wrong, but perhaps He can and will intervene in choices like right or left.

For example, a drunk driver causes an accident that kills someone—the driver made an immoral choice to drive while intoxicated. On the other hand, a responsible driver waits for traffic at an intersection but doesn't see a motorcycle coming his way and turns left, and the resulting accident kills the motorcycle rider. The driver didn't make a choice between right and wrong—he made a choice to turn left based on his (fallible) senses.

In the first case, the drunk driver made an immoral choice to drive while intoxicated, but not necessarily to kill anyone—there are degrees of accountability for sure. As far as the innocent person that the drunk driver killed, I believe God can use any circumstance to accomplish His will. God doesn't cause the drunk driver to drive while intoxicated, but He knows the circumstances and the timing. God didn't cause people to kill the Savior, but it was in accordance with His will and His plan for Jesus Christ that Jesus die for us. In fact, it was essential for His plan.

In the latter case of the responsible driver, I believe the Lord can and will intervene if he sees fit to save the motorcycle rider's life, if say, it was not his appointed time to die. That's what some people would refer to as a "close call" and others would refer to as a miracle.

In either case, I believe we are in God's perfectly merciful and perfectly just hands. I don't believe weighty matters like life and death are a result of randomness. This earth life experience, though a blip in eternity, is pivotal to our eternal salvation and too significant to be always at the mercy of something as arbitrary as "chance" or "bad luck." Elder Bednar told me in the hospital the day Elle died as a result of her accident, "God's will cannot be circumvented."

By the way, I realize people see things like this differently, and I respect that. This is just my opinion, but I'm stickin' to it ;)


Post edit: This post touches on the doctrines of agency and foreordination as well as scriptural and prophets' references to an appointed time for death. I need to be clear that I'm not saying I understand it all and especially how those doctrines work to accomplish God's will in our lives, I just trust that they do.