We Chose This! Agency, Atonement, and Joy

By some good fortune completely uncorrelated with my genetics, all my kids so far have become competitive swimmers. One quirk about swim meets is that the entry deadline is sometimes more than a month before the event. In fact, one or two other meets could occur between entering and competing.

As a result, my kids often forget they signed up for their specific events, especially the hard ones. They may have been (nervously) excited to try the 400-meter freestyle or the 200-meter breaststroke, but on the day of the meet, they groan, “Why did you sign me up for this?”

Of course it is my job—as someone who has never swum a legal butterfly stroke—to assure them that they will do just fine. If pressed, though, I also remind them, “You really did choose this!”

There is real power in owning our choices. Acknowledging our choice forces us to revisit why we made the choice, whether well reasoned or not. It also emphasizes that we control our choices moving forward.

Because of this, today I would like us to review one of the most significant choices each of us has ever made, long ago—indeed, before any mortal timeline—in the premortal Grand Council. While our memory of this event has been withheld behind the veil placed on us at birth, the Lord Himself has shared some details, speaking to prophets as an eyewitness and as a participant in the event.

Agency and Consecration

In this council, our loving Heavenly Father presented His plan of happiness, under which we, His spirit children, could progress to become more like Him, gaining a physical body and learning to use it righteously. The goal was our immortality and eternal life.

But without help, this journey would be a one-way trip: our mortal bodies would eventually die and we would make mistakes that would separate us from God. Of course our Father’s perfect plan was already prepared for this, as the Father offered His perfect Son, our Elder Brother Jesus Christ, to atone for us, overcoming death with resurrection and paying for the sins of those who would repent.

But then a choice arose. In the ultimate act of arrogance, another spirit brother, Lucifer, thought he had a plan that was better than God’s. The scriptures do not provide a detailed recounting, but we are told enough to get a sense of his motives and methods.

Lucifer said, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.”¹ In stark contrast to our Father and His Beloved Son, Lucifer was in this for himself—seeking to glorify himself and to take God’s power for himself.²

The heart of Lucifer’s proposal was to guarantee our return, but this would require either forcing obedience or forgiving sin without repentance. President Dallin H. Oaks described this by saying:

There would be no agency or choice by anyone and, therefore, no need for opposition. There would be no test, no failure, and no success. There would be no growth to attain the purpose the Father desired for His children.³

Indeed, Lucifer’s proposal completely missed the point of our Father’s plan. This mortal experience wasn’t meant to be an earthly joyride in which the only objective was to come back clean. Rather, Father wanted to cultivate His godly attributes in us. That would require more than forced obedience—we needed agency! By choosing for ourselves, we could learn not only to control our actions but to lift our desires, to elevate our goals, and, ultimately, to want what our Father wants. Elder Dale G. Renlund put it this way:

God is not interested in His children just becoming trained and obedient “pets” who will not chew on His slippers in the celestial living room. No, God wants His children to grow up spiritually and join Him in the family business.⁴

This link between exercising agency and growing spiritually is well illustrated in the temple covenant of consecration. The literal definition of consecrate is “to make or declare sacred.”⁵ In the context of the restored Church, consecration “means that members dedicate their time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed them to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth.”⁶

Consecration is related to but deeper than the law of sacrifice. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught:

To sacrifice means to give something up in favor of something more valuable. . . .

. . . Our sacrifices show what we truly value. Sacrifices are sacred and honored by the Lord.⁷

I would add that to sacrifice is an important test of our obedience and of our trust in the Lord when we choose to give up something that He has requested we give up.

Consecration goes further, though. In one sense it is a promise to sacrifice everything we have. It says that all my possessions, time, talents, and energy are His—He now owns them. However, the Lord may not give immediate direction for a particular talent or resource, so He makes us stewards of those resources, commissioned to use them the way He would, as their true owner. In Elder Uchtdorf’s words:

Consecration is different from sacrifice in at least one important way. When we consecrate something, we don’t leave it to be consumed upon the altar. Rather, we put it to use in the Lord’s service.⁸

Thus consecration is not so much an act but an attitude that says, “All that I have is Thine, and I am striving to use it as Thou would.”

In my view, this attitude of consecration cultivates the highest form of moral agency. We do not wait to be commanded “in all things”;⁹ rather, we are

anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [our] own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

For the power is in [us], wherein [we] are agents unto [ourselves].¹⁰

Consecration requires us to weigh the competing good uses for each resource, placing it to its best use—to bless lives and serve God’s purposes. To develop godly attributes, we must struggle (in some small measure) with the decisions that God has to make. You probably have grappled with those questions in choosing to serve a mission, to accept a calling, or to follow a prompting. Being stewards of our consecrated property gives us many of those opportunities.

Before giving a personal example, let me share a caution from Elder Neal A. Maxwell. He said:

Whenever Church members speak of consecration, it should be done reverently while acknowledging that each of us “come[s] short of the glory of God,” some of us far short. Even the conscientious have not arrived, but they sense the shortfall and are genuinely striving.¹¹

I count myself among the genuinely striving and genuinely falling short. But let me recount a way in which our family has exercised our consecration that has become deeply integrated into who we are.

Fifteen years ago, my dear wife, Christine, felt inspired to look into foster care after bearing three sons. Health concerns made it imprudent to have more pregnancies, but we felt that we had surplus love, energy, and resources that we could share with more children. And who better to help than the most vulnerable—whose birth homes are currently insufficient—for whatever amount of time they would need it?

With much prayer, we started getting licensed. Since our cautious beginning, we have welcomed twenty-one children into our home. With my wife’s medical expertise, we were almost always caring for medically fragile infants—so we’ve had pretty intense sleep deprivation! Many of these children were with us for short durations while their health stabilized, a few of them stayed with us for months, and three of them are now staying with us for eternity.

In terms of exercising agency, though, I emphasize that foster care was not a one-time choice but has required continual evaluation of our consecration. The state has called us regarding potential placements many times; each time we have prayerfully considered the request, and, frankly, we have said no at least as often as yes.

One of the most consequential decisions happened in June 2014. I was traveling for an economics conference and got a call from my wife about a placement of three children. We discussed it but readily felt that it was not right for our family at that time. The very next day my wife called again with another placement of infant twins, and we both felt a different gravity of the decision. After some discussion we hung up, and each prayed independently—1,200 miles apart—I in a deserted university hallway.

When we called each other back, I first asked my wife to list all the reasons this placement could be a bad idea for our family at that time. She did, after which I confirmed that she had included all the same points I had considered. I then added, “That being said, we need to call them back and say yes. Those girls need to be in our home.” My wife confirmed that this was the answer she had also received.

Well, we did call back, and they did come to our home. And they have never left. On their first birthday they were sealed to us in the Salt Lake Temple. Of course it’s not always easy (whether raising these girls or, frankly, in any foster care case). This photo in particular foreshadows many future squabbles between the girls! [A photo of twin girls, one grabbing her sister’s hair, was shown.] But in the hard times, I frequently remember my prayer in that lonely university hallway. We chose this! We exercised our agency and trusted our prompting. We knew it was right.

Returning our attention to the premortal council, we can see that Lucifer’s plan couldn’t have worked, as it deprived us of choice. Yet ironically, the most consequential choice of our premortal life was about choice. And sadly, many of our Father’s spirit children chose to forever limit their future choices. With sorrow, the Lord told Joseph Smith, “Also a third part of the hosts of heaven [Lucifer] turned . . . away from me because of their agency.”¹² We attempted to persuade one another in what is termed the “war in heaven,”¹³ but, ultimately, each chose his or her way.

The Bible Dictionary reports, “The nature of the conflict, however, is such that there could be no neutrals, then or now.”¹⁴ In the end, you and I supported our Father’s plan.¹⁵ How do we know this? Because we are here! Only “those who [kept] their first estate”¹⁶ by following the Savior could be born to mortal bodies. We chose this! We wanted to preserve our agency. We knew it was right.

The Atoning Power of Christ

I imagine that many of those who opposed God’s plan saw it as risky. First, it was risky because we might make mistakes. However, that wasn’t a risk—it was a certainty! In a fallen world, where we would be subject to new desires and imperfect understanding, of course we would fall short—that is, all but one, Jesus Christ.

One evening as my eleven-year-old son was going to bed, he asked me with deep sincerity, “Will I ever be good enough? Will I make it?”

Bear in mind that he is a really good kid, but he was feeling the weight of imperfectly doing what he knew he should. His two questions deserved different answers. For sure we will make mistakes throughout all our life; we won’t be good enough on our own. But our Savior ensured that we can repent of those mistakes—over and over, improving and progressing.

Elder Lynn G. Robbins taught, “Repentance isn’t His backup plan in the event we might fail. Repentance is His plan, knowing that we will.”¹⁷ Our Savior, our perfect Brother, “is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness,”¹⁸ and with Him, we will assuredly make it.

This brings us to the second potential risk for those premortal spirits: the whole plan hinged on one person—on Jesus Christ, who would come to the earth with the same conditions as all of us. “He [would receive] not of the fulness at first, but [would continue] from grace to grace, until he received a fulness.”¹⁹ He would be “in all points tempted . . . , yet [be] without sin.”²⁰ He would then pay an unmeasurable penalty that He did not deserve for sins that He did not commit, with sufferings that we cannot fathom.

In His words, “How sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.”²¹ Our Savior’s Atonement was an indispensable part—the indispensable part—of the plan and thus was key in why we chose this.

Book of Mormon prophets Jacob, Nephi, and Amulek described the Savior’s Atonement as “infinite,”²² a description that is not found elsewhere in scripture. The adjective infinite certainly captures the inability of our finite mortal minds to comprehend what Christ did for us, but it also communicates the expansive reach of His Atonement.

Let me illustrate this with a brief mathematical example that, as with all analogies, is sure to fall short but hopefully conveys an important truth. [A graph was shown.] If we plot the function 1 over x, we see that it gets bigger and bigger as x gets closer to 0. Indeed, I have to cut off the top of this graph because it keeps going up—infinitely! We describe this by saying, “As x goes to 0, y goes to infinity.” Surprisingly, it does not matter what finite number we place on top, whether 60 over x or 1,000 over x or 1,000,000 over x. As x goes to 0, y still goes to infinity in the limit.

It is like our sinless Savior is in the denominator, with x = 0, while all our sins are in the numerator. His sacrifice (y) is indeed infinite and eternal, and “[His] grace is sufficient”²³—more than enough to cover all my sins, of any severity. Moreover, it is sufficient for all the sins of every one of God’s children in every age of the world.²⁴ It does not matter how large the numerator, Christ’s infinite Atonement is greater!

Like most good math results, this insight has a corollary that immediately follows. Since Jesus paid an infinite price, He has already paid all. He does not have to endure extra suffering when we repent of additional sins. In economic terms, we would say His atoning power is non-rival—its infinite cost remains the same regardless of how many people ultimately use it.²⁵ The natural man tends to underproduce non-rival goods—either because the price is driven to zero, preventing it from being profitable, or because the price is kept above zero, inefficiently preventing some people from using it.

But Jesus Christ is not the natural man. He was willing to pay the cost for us, even knowing that we “would be unprofitable servants.”²⁶ And He pleads with everyone, “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.”²⁷ In His words:

I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I.²⁸

What a tragic loss if we refuse Christ’s grace, suffering ourselves for what He has already paid. Indeed, we who are indebted can’t even pay this debt ourselves, so this is just extra suffering. How dreadfully inefficient!

Put in the positive, however, Sister Tamara W. Runia recently taught, “Your repentance doesn’t burden Jesus Christ; it brightens His joy!”²⁹ As a novice swim parent, I was surprised at how much joy I felt when my kids hit a new personal record, even when—perhaps especially when—they had been disqualified in the previous race.

You likely recall the missionary scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 18:15 that if we labor all our days and bring but one soul unto Him, “how great shall be [our] joy with him in the kingdom of [our] Father!” But just before this verse, we are told:

Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. . . .

And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!³⁰

I believe that verse 15 also applies to Jesus. Even if He had labored all His days and had given His life to save only one of His brothers or sisters, His joy would have been so great that it would have been worth it. He chose this! He wanted to atone for us. He knew it was right.

The Epistle to the Hebrews declares:

For it became him . . . to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

For both he that sanctifieth [Jesus] and they who are sanctified [us] are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,

Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.³¹

This scripture opened my eyes. Do you hear it? Jesus is not ashamed of me or of the fact that I still rely on Him to rescue me. If I keep returning to Him and to my covenants with Him, I can imagine myself standing with Him in the end, sanctified by Him. There will be no asterisk by my name that says, “Yes, Brennan made it, but only with help.” No. We will be one with Him. He will be overjoyed that we are there, to the point that He, the great Jehovah, Alpha and Omega, will declare each of ournames there as our Advocate and Friend.

Brothers and sisters, this is the greatness of our Savior and Brother. We knew Him in the premortal realm, we knew His nature, and we knew who He was. For us, trusting Him was not a risk. We were anticipating His future Atonement, “even as though he had already come.”³²

The prophet Alma talked of spirits at the foundation of the world “in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith.”³³ I testify that we exercised that faith in that Grand Council. Because of our faith in Him, we did not see risk; Jesus Christ was a certainty. That is why we followed Him and our Father.

How powerful it is to know that you took that leap of faith, that you trusted Christ that much. We chose this! We trusted in His atoning power as though He had already come. We knew He was right.

God’s Plan in Action

So now we are here in mortality. Now we are actually experiencing the plan in action. We have to make hard choices and find that same faith in Christ anew. Each of us experiences very real challenges here. For some of you, perhaps my Economics 110 course has been one of your challenges!

In all seriousness though, life can include deep injustices, terrible suffering, and great heartache—some from our own choices but many from the choices of others or factors entirely beyond anyone’s control. We probably did not choose or even preview the specific trials we would face, but we undoubtedly knew that challenges would be part of the package, that “it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.”³⁴

Despite this earthly sorrow, we knew what we were really choosing. As our Mother Eve said:

Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.³⁵

Eve saw not only the bitter we would experience but also the sweet. She saw the happiness that the plan of salvation would unlock. She chose this! She anticipated joy. She knew it was right.

When Job lost family, fortune, and health, he and his friends debated at length why he was allowed to suffer. When the Lord finally spoke to Job from the whirlwind, He didn’t actually explain why Job had suffered so. But the Lord did ask rhetorically:

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . .

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?³⁶

Where was Job? He was one of the sons of God in the Grand Council, listening with rapture to the plan of happiness. He (with all of us) shouted for joy at the prospect. In effect, the Lord was saying, “Trust me. Job, you chose this! You saw the joy. You knew it was right.”

We knew that this life would include the bitter and the sweet. In fact, the bitter is a necessary part of mortality, not an accidental flaw in the plan. When Moroni was feeling flawed and inadequate, the Lord told him, “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble.”³⁷ Note that weakness is singular—it is not that God assigns us particular weaknesses but that He puts us in a mortal condition of weakness. Why? He explained:

My grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.³⁸

For all the trouble and sorrow that we could possibly face, we knew those challenges would help us turn to the Lord just as Job did. That humility unlocks our hearts to Him and allows Him to transform us into something strong, something like Him. We chose this! We shouted for joy! We knew it was right.

Consider some of the choices of my great-great-great-grandfather Henry John Platt. Born in England in 1828, he was orphaned in his infancy and was placed in the care of Richard and Mary Speed. The Speeds heard the restored gospel and were baptized in 1841, when Henry was thirteen. But in Henry’s words, his guardian judged that he “was not sedate and good enough to be a member in the church.”³⁹ He nonetheless emigrated with the Speeds at age sixteen. However, before reaching St. Louis, Richard drowned in the Mississippi River. The rest of the family scattered, but Henry sought out the Saints in St. Louis and was baptized at age twenty.

Henry spent the rest of his life serving in the kingdom—in St. Louis and later in Salt Lake City, St. George, Utah, and my hometown of St. Johns, Arizona. Through all the challenges of emigrating, settling in the desert, losing three children in the same year, and more, he nonetheless reported that he was “up to date endeavoring to do right (and) honor my calling.”⁴⁰ It was not an easy path, but he chose this! He trusted the Savior and sought the joy that only He could give. He knew it was right.

I see similar faith demonstrated in my parents’ conversions. My grandfather fell inactive in his youth, which meant that my father, Mitch Platt, was not raised in the faith despite living among many members. Upon arriving at the University of Arizona, his assigned roommate was Kenny Evans, a somewhat recent convert to the restored Church. Kenny’s example and testimony opened my father’s heart, and near the end of his freshman year, my father was baptized. My father tells me that he didn’t have a deep understanding of scripture then, but he saw the fruits of the gospel and wanted them for himself and for his future family.

My father then transferred to finish his degree at Michigan State and almost immediately met my mother, Mary Johnson. With the same enthusiasm of his freshman roommate, my dad proceeded to introduce her to the restored gospel. She took her time—three years—to carefully consider this new church. During their senior year, her close friend was also meeting with the missionaries. After a university course that they shared, the two would meet at the student union to discuss over coffee what they were learning in the Book of Mormon. Sometime during that year they shifted to hot chocolate.

My mother’s father, Arnold Johnson, was a lay minister in the Lutheran Church. He was not thrilled with my mom’s potential conversion, but he did offer her important advice, saying, “If you do choose to join that church, don’t you ever change your mind. You should be sure.”

Eventually she was sure, choosing to be baptized shortly before graduating. My parents married civilly two months later and were sealed for eternity a year after her baptism.

My parent’s baptismal and temple covenants with the Savior have guided their lives through challenges and through joys and have influenced all their posterity. By late fall this year, five of their grandchildren will be called or serving full-time missions simultaneously, one of whom is my oldest son, Garrett. My parents chose this! They loved the Savior and sought His joy for their family. They knew it was right.

The Joy of the Plan

This story of agency, Atonement, and joy—all made possible through the Savior—repeats through countless lives with a certain recursive elegance that any mathematician could admire. Each iteration has its own unique setting and beautiful details, yet they all echo the themes from that premortal Grand Council. In our very best moments, we declare today the same resolve we had there in supporting the Savior. For all the afflictions we may encounter along the way, we yet trust that those afflictions shall be “swallowed up in the joy of Christ.”⁴¹

I cannot think about joy without picturing my youngest daughter, Rose, who has been full of joy since she came to our home at two months old. In a rather protracted foster case, we eventually adopted her and were sealed in the Provo City Center Temple in September 2023. Quick pro tip: When you are sealed to adopted children, the rest of your children are eligible to attend the sealing, even if they are too young to be baptized or endowed. There is no sweeter experience than being united with your spouse and children in the temple.

Rose was thirty months old by then, though she wasn’t speaking much—maybe a dozen words. Just a few weeks after the sealing, we had another temple opportunity as we visited the Orem Utah Temple open house as a family. I carried Rose throughout the tour, and near the conclusion, as we exited the celestial room and stood at the top of the beautiful staircase, Rose distinctly declared, “Happy”—a word I had never heard her say before. And for emphasis, with a hand on my cheek, she repeated it two more times.

With Rose, I testify that this is the plan of happiness. Even without a memory of the Grand Council, we can feel in our souls the Spirit of God confirming that this is right. 

I testify that our Savior loves us. He feels joy when we bind ourselves to Him through covenants. He feels joy when we repent and rely on Him. We feel that joy—His joy—as we become one with Him. I testify that He “is mighty to save.” That is why we chose this. We chose Him. May we ever do so, I pray in His name, even Jesus Christ, amen.

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