Speaking of the importance of decisions made in life, Elder Clayton Christensen related five decisions that have changed his life during a devotional address Tuesday at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg.

Now a member of the Fifth Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Christensen said the first decision was that he was going to get the best education possible.

            “My mom taught the image that we were like clay in the hands of the potter. I remember her teaching me that the more you learn, the more talents that you develop, and the more ways God can shape you to be useful in building his kingdom,” he said.

            He said the primary motivation for his learning was that there was a cause far greater than a personal cause, and the things he learned about arts, history, literature and science have all helped in magnifying his service in the church.

            The second decision was learning for himself that the Book of Mormon was true.

            After finishing at BYU, Elder Christensen received a scholarship to attend Oxford University in England. It was there that he came to know the truths of the book.

            “At that point in my life, I had sustained myself on a belief in many of the doctrines of the church and in the trust of my parents because I knew that they knew it was true and I trusted my parents,” he said.

            He committed every night from 11 to 12 to study the Book of Mormon to find out if it was true, despite the amount of time it would take from his demanding schedule of classes.

            Starting by kneeling in prayer, he would read a page at a time, stopping at the end and questioning whether it could have been written by someone who was out to deceive people. Then kneeling in prayer again, he would verbally ask God if it was  true.

            He repeated this process night after night, page after page, until one night he felt something stronger than he ever had before.

            “There came into the room a beautiful, warm, loving spirit that just surrounded me and permeated my soul, and enveloped me in a feeling of love that I just had not imagined that I could feel,” he said.

            Speaking next of the conflict he faced upon deciding whether to spend an hour each day studying the Book of Mormon, he said, “I use applied econometrics maybe once a year. But I use my knowledge that the Book of Mormon is the word of God many times everyday of my life. In all of the education I have pursued, that is the single most useful piece of knowledge that I ever gained.”

            The third decision he faced was when he was called to serve as the Young Men’s president in the Oxford Ward.

            With 48 young men in the ward and only one that was active, he said, “I had no idea how I was going to carry on my course of study and do anything near a capable job as the Young Men’s president.”

            He decided to spend each day from six to nine at night riding his bike around and looking up these young men and inviting them to church. Eventually six came out, all of whom served missions.

“The lesson that I learned from this is that when Heavenly Father invites us to seek first the kingdom of God and promises us that all these other things will be added to us, that he was dead serious,” he said. “This is a promise that we can bank on.”

The fourth decision he was grateful for also took place at Oxford. Being 6 foot 8 inches, he worked his way to playing as the starting center on the Oxford basketball team. His team marched through the equivalent of the NCAA tournament and eventually made it to the semifinals before he realized the championship game was scheduled for a Sunday.

“I went to the coach truly conflicted because we had worked our guts out all season long and the guys on the team were the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. I needed to help them win this goal that we had all practiced for, and yet I made this commitment to Heavenly Father,” he said.

Despite pressure from his coach and teammates, he sat the game out and attended his church meetings.

“The reason that decision has proven to be so important to me is that my whole life has turned out to be an unending stream of extenuating circumstances,” he said. “Had I crossed the line just that once, then the next time something came up that was so demanding and critical, it would have been so much easier to cross the line again.

“This lesson that I’ve learned has been very important, and the lesson is that it really is easier to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time, than it is 98 percent of the time.”

The final decision he spoke of was when he called himself on a mission again.

“Sharing the gospel has allowed me to feel the spirit in my life more profoundly and more consistently than anything else that I’ve done,” he said. “If you can live your life positioned squarely on the front line engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Satan over the souls of the children of men, there is no way you can succeed in that calling if you don’t have the spirit of God with you everyday. It will be a great blessing to you.”