A Mighty Change of Heart

When I was 11 or so my older brother took an M&M and told me it was the last piece of candy he would eat in a year. Frankly I thought he was nuts, and that he wouldn't make it through the night let alone the year. Well, he proved me wrong and one year later he sat down to eat his first piece of candy/junk food in 365 days (I believe it was a ding-dong if that matters). He was so excited and yet the moment it was in his mouth I saw his face crinkle up: he didn't like the taste at all anymore.

And that's what it means to have "a mighty change of heart" and no longer have "a disposition to do evil" (Mosiah 5:2) If we learn to deny ourselves of those things we know will bring us spiritual harm, then eventually, if we ever slip up and return to it, we will no longer even enjoy or want to do it. It will make us literally sick, and make us wonder why we ever wanted it at all. I know that it is the daily small acts by which we become who we want to become-to have not just our actions but our desires, our very cores, be what they were meant to be: like God. It is rarely a moment or an event that occurs in us, it wasn't the promise to not eat candy that made my brother hate the taste of it, it was the year without it. Drop by drop, dip by dip, chip by chip, we will fill our souls, wax strong in the gospel, and have the master sculpt us to be all that He intends us to be. And it is then and only then that we may proclaim in exultant joy, "I have experienced a mighty change of heart", and as I do what is right, I will "retain"(Alma 5:14,26) that. For just as we can fall out of love of sin, if we return to it enough, our heart will change back. There is nothing greater we can do than prevent that, for it is our heart the Lord wants, nothing more or less than that-so let's give Him a good one.