There is a danger in the word someday when what it means is “not this day.” “Someday I will repent.” “Someday I will forgive him.” “Someday I will speak to my friend about the Church.” “Someday I will start to pay tithing.” “Someday I will return to the temple.” “Someday …”
The scriptures make the danger of delay clear. It is that we may discover that we have run out of time. The God who gives us each day as a treasure will require an accounting. We will weep, and He will weep, if we have intended to repent and to serve Him in tomorrows which never came or have dreamt of yesterdays where the opportunity to act was past. This day is a precious gift of God. The thought “Someday I will” can be a thief of the opportunities of time and the blessings of eternity.
That is as true of a day as it is of a life. A morning prayer and an early search in the scriptures to know what we should do for the Lord can set the course of a day. We can know which task, of all those we might choose, matters most to God and therefore to us. I have learned such a prayer is always answered if we ask and ponder with childlike submission, ready to act without delay to perform even the most humble service.
On many days, doing what matters most will not be easy. It is not supposed to be. God’s purpose in creation was to let us prove ourselves. The plan was explained to us in the spirit world before we were born. We were valiant enough there to qualify for the opportunity to choose against temptation here to prepare for eternal life, the greatest of all the gifts of God. We rejoiced to know the test would be one of faithful obedience even when it would not be easy: “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.”6
All of us will need His help to avoid the tragedy of procrastinating what we must do here and now to have eternal life. For most of us the temptation to delay will come from one or both of two feelings. They are polar opposites: one is to be complacent about what we have already done, and the other is to feel overwhelmed by the need to do more.
Complacency is a danger for us all. It can come to naive youth who feel that there will be plenty of time in the future for spiritual things. They might think that they have already done enough, considering the brief time they have lived. I know from experience how the Lord can help such a youth to see that he or she is in the midst of spiritual things, now. He can help you see that classmates are watching you. He can help you see that their eternal future is shaped by what they observe you do or not do. Your simple thanks for their influence for good on you can lift them more than you imagine. When you ask God, He can and will reveal to you the opportunities to lift others for Him, which He has placed around you from your infancy.
It is hard to know when we have done enough for the Atonement to change our natures and so qualify us for eternal life. And we don’t know how many days we will have to give the service necessary for that mighty change to come. But we know that we will have days enough if only we don’t waste them.
For those who are discouraged by their circumstances and are therefore tempted to feel they cannot serve the Lord this day, I make you two promises. Hard as things seem today, they will be better in the next day if you choose to serve the Lord this day with your whole heart. Your circumstances may not be improved in all the ways which you desire. But you will have been given new strength to carry your burdens and new confidence that when your burdens become too heavy, the Lord, whom you have served, will carry what you cannot. He knows how. He prepared long ago. He suffered your infirmities and your sorrows when He was in the flesh so that He would know how to succor you.
The five most personally impactful points of 2 Nephi 2:
(v. 1-2) Like so many people, Jacob was not born into a perfect family environment. I am grateful that the foundational characters and first family of The Book of Mormon are exactly who they are. Two of his elder brothers (Laman and Lemuel) were poor examples while the other two (Nephi and Sam) were excellent examples. These facts are important to the remaining themes of the chapter: opposition and agency.
(v. 3-10) The grantor of our agency and key figure in the Plan of Salvation is Jesus Christ. It is only through the merits, mercy and grace of Christ that we will be able to overcome both sin and death. The ends of the law given by the Savior have both a punishment affixed for disobeying it as well as happiness affixed for obedience to it.
There must be opposition in all things. Without wickedness there would not be holiness. Without sadness there would not be happiness. All things in heaven and earth we created for a purpose - some to act and some to be acted upon.
When our Father placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden he gave them the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in opposition to the Tree of Life. They were "instructed sufficiently that they (knew) good from evil" (v.5) and then allowed to make a choice. The Lord gave unto man that he should act for himself, but man could not act for himself unless he was enticed by opposite forces (v.16).
Adam fell that man might be and men are that they might have joy (v.25). To this verse Elder Russell M. Nelson commented, "men are they they might have joy, not guilt trips." If the Lord is the one enticing us to do good and have joy we also learn that it is Satan who "had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind" (v.18). Therefore we are "free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil" (v.27)
