Welcome to the Recent Speeches Podcast presented by BYU Speaches, featuring inspiring new

devotionals and forums given each week on BYU campus. Be sure to check out our other podcasts

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This devotional address entitled, We Chose This, Agency, Atonement, and Joy, was given on July 8th of

2025 by Brennan C. Platt, then a professor of economics at BYU.

By some good fortune, completely uncorrelated with my genetics,

all my kids so far have become competitive swimmers. One quirk about swim meets is that the

entry deadline is sometimes more than a month before the event. In fact, one or two other meets

could occur between entering and competing. As a result, my kids often forget signing up for their specific

events, especially the hard ones. They may have been nervously excited to try the 400-meter

freestyle or the 200-meter breaststroke, but on the day of the meat, they groan,

why did you sign me up for this? Of course, it is my job as someone who has never swum a legal butterfly

stroke to assure them that they will do just fine. If pressed, though, I also remind them that

you really did choose this. There is real power in owning our choices. Acknowledging our choice

forces us to revisit why we made the choice, whether

well-reasoned or not. It also emphasizes that we control our choices moving forward.

Because of this, today I would like to review one of the most significant choices each of us

has ever made long ago, indeed before any mortal timeline, in the great pre-mortal council.

While our memory of these events have been withheld behind the veil placed on us at birth,

the Lord himself has shared some details, speaking to the prophets as an eyewitness and

as a participant in the events.

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