Keep an Eternal Perspective

by Greg Hansen

“Therefore God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption” (Alma 12:32).

When I was on my mission I had the opportunity to teach a less-active's non-member husband. We went through the lessons week by week struggling to find them at home [they were a Navy family] and trying to get the lessons done before they were deployed. The day before they were deployed we caught them at home and gave them the lesson about the plan of salvation. The husband made a comment at the end of the lesson like 'now I know why you are bugging me all the time about the choices I make and why I should be baptized'. It occurs to me as we are leaving that if we had just known 4 months earlier that he did not have an eternal perspective, he might have joined the church before he was deployed.

If we can keep an eternal perspective it makes many if not all of the decisions and experiences of this life seem manageable. And keeping an eternal perspective can help us weed out the unimportant matters to focus on the matters with eternal weight.