May I share with you an example of one
who determined early in life what his goals would be.
I speak of Brother Clayton M. Christensen,
a member of the Church who is a professor of business
administration in the business school at Harvard University.
When he was 16 years old, Brother Christensen
decided, among other things, that he would not
play sports on Sunday.
Years later, when he attended Oxford University in England,
he played center on the basketball team.
That year they had an undefeated season
and went through to the British equivalent of what,
in the United States, we would be calling the NCAA basketball
tournament.
They won their games fairly easily in the tournament,
making it to the final four.
It was then that Brother Christensen
looked at the schedule and, to his absolute horror,
saw that the final basketball game was scheduled
to be played on a Sunday.
He and the team had worked so hard to get where they were,
and he was the starting center.
He went to his coach with his dilemma.
His coach was unsympathetic and told
Brother Christensen he expected him to play in the game.
Prior to the final game, however, there
was a semifinal game.
Unfortunately, the backup center dislocated his shoulder,
which increased the pressure on Brother Christensen
to play in the final game.
He went to his hotel room.
He knelt down.
He asked his Heavenly Father if it
would be all right, just this once, if he
played that game on Sunday.
He said that before he had finished praying,
he received the answer: "Clayton, what are you even
asking me for?
You know the answer."
He went to his coach, telling him
how sorry he was that he wouldn't
be playing in the final game.
Then he went to the Sunday meetings in the local ward
while his team played without him.
He prayed mightily for their success.
They did win.
That fateful, difficult decision was
made more than 30 years ago.
Brother Christensen has said that as time has passed,
he considers it one of the most important decisions he ever
made.
It would have been very easy to have said, "You know,
in general, keeping the Sabbath day holy is
the right commandment, but in my particular extenuating
circumstance, it's OK just this once if I don't do it."
However, he says his entire life has turned out
to be an unending stream of extenuating circumstances,
and had he crossed the line just that once, the next time
something came up that was so demanding and critical,
it would have been so much easier to cross the line again.
The lesson he learned is that it is easier
to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time
than it is 98 percent of the time.