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In A 'wheat And Tares' World, How Unusually Blessed Faithful Members Are To Have The Precious And Constant Gift Of The Holy Ghost With Reminders Of What Is Right And Of The Covenants We Have Made. 'for Behold, ... The Holy Ghost ... Will Show Unto You All Things What Ye Should Do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever The Decibels Of Decadence, These Need Not Overwhelm The Still, Small Voice! Some Of The Best Sermons We Will Ever Hear Will Be Thus Prompted From The Pulpit Of Memory—to An Audience Of One!

-Neal A. Maxwell

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In A 'wheat And

Neal A. Maxwell

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In A 'wheat And Tares' World, How Unusually Blessed Faithful Members Are To Have The Precious And Constant Gift Of The Holy Ghost With Reminders Of What Is Right And Of The Covenants We Have Made. 'for Behold, ... The Holy Ghost ... Will Show Unto You All Things What Ye Should Do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever The Decibels Of Decadence, These Need Not Overwhelm The Still, Small Voice! Some Of The Best Sermons We Will Ever Hear Will Be Thus Prompted From The Pulpit Of Memory—to An Audience Of One!

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Each Day I See All About Me The Fruits Of Commandment-keeping.

Anger Should Never Be An Overnight Guest.

Even The Good Can Become Careless Without The Lord's Being There To Chasten.

Daily Hope Is Vital, Since The ‘winter Quarters’ Of Our Lives Are Not Immediately Adjacent To Our Promised Land Either. An Arduous Trek Still Awaits, But Hope Spurs Weary Disciples On.

Love, Patience, And Meekness Can Be Just As Contagious As Rudeness And Crudeness.

. . . Just As God Cannot Look Upon Sin With The Least Degree Of Allowance, As We Become More Like Him, Neither Can We. The Best People Have A Heightened Awareness Of What Little Of The Worst Is Still In Them! Indeed, The Divine Discontent, The Justifiable Spiritual Restlessness That We Feel, Is A Natural Follow-on Feeling In The Disciple Who Has Taken The Lord's Counsel To "make You A New Heart And A New Spirit." (ezekiel 18:31.)

Patience Is...clearly Not Fatalistic, Shoulder-shrugging Resignation. It Is The Acceptance Of A Divine Rhythm To Life; It Is Obedience Prolonged. Patience Stoutly Resists Pulling Up The Daisies To See How The Roots Are Doing.

A Basic Cause Of Murmuring Is That Too Many Of Us Seem To Expect That Life Will Flow Ever Smoothly, Featuring An Unbroken Chain Of Green Lights With Empty Parking Places Just In Front Of Our Destinations!.

Man Can Learn Self-discipline Without Becoming Ascetic; He Can Be Wise Without Waiting To Be Old; He Can Be Influential Without Waiting For Status. Man Can Sharpen His Ability To Distinguish Between Matters Of Principle And Matters Of Preference, But Only If We Have A Wise Interplay Between Time And Truth, Between Minutes And Morality.

A Vague Goal Is No Goal At All. The Ten Commandments Wouldn't Be Very Impressive, For Instance, If They Weren't Specific, But Simply Were Couched In A Phraseology Such As 'thou Shalt Not Be A Bad Person.

Ten Commandments

Coming Unto The Lord Is Not A Negotiation, But A Surrender.

There Is Also The Very Real Possibility That, In The Justice Of God, One Of The Reasons He Uses The Weak And The Foolish Of The World Is So That No Argument Could Be Made Later That Certain People Were Advantaged In Some Unfair Way By That Which Was Unearned-either In The Premortal Life Or Here. Hence It Seems Prudent For Us To Realize That Just Because One Is Set Apart Or Ordained To A Certain Calling Or Assignment He Or She Must Not Expect To Be Set Apart From The Stresses Of Life. There Appear To Be No Immunities.

Our Afflictions Brothers And Sisters Often Will Not Be Extinguished, They Will Be Dwarfed And Swallowed Up In The Joy Of Christ. That’s How We Overcome, Most Of The Time. It’s Not Their Elimination, But The Placing Of Them In That Larger Context.

Though We Have Rightly Applauded Our Ancestors For Their Spiritual Achievements (and Do Not And Must Not Discount Them Now), Those Of Us Who Prevail Today Will Have Done No Small Thing. The Special Spirits Who Have Been Reserved To Live In This Time Of Challenges And Who Overcome Will One Day Be Praised For Their Stamina By Those Who Pulled Handcarts.

Our Goals Should Stretch Us Bit By Bit. So Often When We Think We Have Encountered A Ceiling, It Is Really A Psychological Or Experimental Barrier That We Have Built Ourselves. We Built It And We Can Remove It. Just As Correct Principles, When Applied, Carry Their Own Witness That They Are True, So Do Correct Personal Improvement Programs. But We Must Not Expect Personal Improvement Without Pain Or Some 'remodeling.' We Can't Expect To Have The Thrills Of Revealed Religion Without The Theology. We Cannot Expect To Have The Soul Stretching Without Christian Service.

Just As Doubt, Despair, And Desensitization Go Together, So Do Faith, Hope, And Charity. The Latter, However, Must Be Carefully And Constantly Nurtured, Whereas Despair, Like Dandelions, Needs So Little Encouragement To Sprout And Spread. Despair Comes So Naturally To The Natural Man!

We Are So Busy Constantly Checking Our Own Temperatures, We Fail To Notice The Burning Fevers Of Others.

So Often Our Sisters Comfort Others When Their Own Needs Are Greater Than Those Being Comforted. That Quality Is Like The Generosity Of Jesus On The Cross. Empathy During Agony Is A Portion Of Divinity!

In One Degree Or Another We All Struggle With Selfishness. Since It Is So Common, Why Worry About Selfishness Anyway? Because Selfishness Is Really Self-destruction In Slow Motion.

If Another Person Only Had In His Storehouse Of Deserved Self-esteem What You Had Put There, What Would He Have To Draw Upon And To Sustain Him?

Without Making A Fetish Of Goal Setting, And Without Letting "lists" Of Tasks We Desire To Do Dominate Us, Some Recording Of Goals Is Wise Not Only For The Self-reminder These Constitute, But Also For The Satisfaction Of Crossing Things Off.

Comparatively, We Are So Much Quicker To Return Favors And To Pay Our Debts To Mortals - And We Should Be Responsive And Grateful. But What Of Him Who Gave Us Mortal Life Itself, Who Will Ere Long Give Us All Immortality, And Who Proffers To The Faithful The Greatest Gift Of All, Eternal Life? We Are Poor Bookkeepers, Indeed!

One Day The Faithful Will Have It All!

Those Who Do Too Much For Their Children Will Soon Find They Can Do Nothing With Their Children. So Many Children Have Been So Much Done For They Are Almost Done In.

God’s Grace Will Cover Us Like A Cloak-enough To Provide For Survival But Too Thin To Keep Out All The Cold.

It Is Extremely Important For You To Believe In Yourselves Not Only For What You Are Now But For What You Have The Power To Become. Trust In The Lord As He Leads You Along. He Has Things For You To Do That You Won't Know About Now But That Will Unfold Later. If You Stay Close To Him, You Will Have Some Great Adventures. You Will Live In A Time Where Instead Of Sometimes Being Fulfilled, Many Of Them Will Actually Be Fulfilled. The Lord Will Unfold Your Future Bit By Bit.

No "natural" Resource Is More Precious And To Be Used More Wisely Than Time. These Mortal Moments Matter More Than We Know. There Are No Idle Hours; There Are Only Idle People. In True Righteousness There Is Serenity, But There Is An Array Of Reminders That The "sacred Present" Is Packed With Possibilities Which Are Slipping By Us, Which Are Going Away From Us Each Moment.

We Can Learn That At The Center Of Our Agency Is Our Freedom To Form A Healthy Attitude Toward Whatever Circumstances We Are Placed In! Those, For Instance, Who Stretch Themselves In Service- Though Laced With Limiting Diseases-are Often The Healthiest Among Us! The Spirit Can Drive The Flesh Beyond Where The Body First Agrees To Go!

Blessed Is He Who Will Not Be Offended

We Can't Dwell Upon Another's Ingratitude Without Using Up Our Time And Talents Unprofitably.

Meanwhile, Spiritual Submissiveness Brings About The Wiser Use Of Our Time, Talents, And Gifts As Compared With Our Laboring Diligently But Conditionally To Establish Our Own Righteousness Instead Of The Lord's (d&c 1:16). After All, Lucifer Was Willing To Work Very Hard, But Conditionally In His Own Way And For His Own Purposes.

Time Is Clearly Not Our Natural Dimension. Thus It Is That We Are Never Really At Home In Time. Alternately, We Find Ourselves Wishing To Hasten The Passage Of Time Or To Hold Back The Dawn. We Can Do Neither, Of Course, But Whereas The Fish Is At Home In Water, We Are Clearly Not At Home In Time--because We Belong To Eternity.

Within What Is Allotted To Us, We Can Have Spiritual Contentment.

We, More Than Others, Should Carry Jumper And Tow Cables Not Only In Our Cars, But Also In Our Hearts, By Which Means We Can Send The Needed Boost Or Charge Of Encouragement Or The Added Momentum To Mortal Neighbors.

A Father Who Finds It Difficult To Express His Love Vocally For His Children May Need, At First, To Be Humbly Obedient In Holding Family Home Evenings In Order To Help Him To Discover, Or To Increase, His Appreciation For His Children. Next Can Come To Him The Courage To Say I Love You To Each One.

There Are Certain Mortal Moments And Minutes That Matter. Certain Hingepoints In The History Of Each Human. Some Seconds Are So Decisive They Shrink The Soul, While Others Are Spent, So As To Stretch The Soul.

The Winds Of Tribulation, Which Blow Out Some Men's Candles Of Commitment, Only Fan The Fires Of Faith Of Others.

In Conclusion, The Submission Of One's Will Is Really The Only Uniquely Personal Thing We Have To Place On God's Altar. The Many Other Things We 'give,' Brothers And Sisters, Are Actually The Things He Has Already Given Or Loaned To Us. However, When You And I Finally Submit Ourselves, By Letting Our Individual Wills Be Swallowed Up In God's Will, Then We Are Really Giving Something To Him! It Is The Only Possession Which Is Truly Ours To Give!

So It Is That Real, Personal Sacrifice Never Was Placing An Animal On The Altar. Instead, It Is A Willingness To Put The Animal In Us Upon The Altar And Letting It Be Consumed! Such Is The 'sacrifice Unto The Lord... Of A Broken Heart And A Contrite Spirit,' (d&c 59:8), A Prerequisite To Taking Up The Cross, While Giving 'away All [our] Sins' In Order To 'know God' (alma 22:18) For The Denial Of Self Precedes The Full Acceptance Of Him.

If, In The End, You Have Not Chosen Jesus Christ It Will Not Matter What You Have Chosen.

I Fear That, As Conditions Worsen, Many Will React To The Failures Of Too Much Government By Calling For Even More Government. Then There Will Be More And More Lifeboats Launched Because Fewer And Fewer Citizens Know How To Swim. Unlike Some Pendulums, Political Pendulums To Not Swing Back Automatically; They Must Be Pushed. History Is Full Of Instances When People Have Waited In Vain For Pendulums To Swing Back.

These Really Are Our Days, And We Can Prevail And Overcome, Even In The Midst Of Trends That Are Very Disturbing. If We Are Faithful The Day Will Come When Those Deserving Pioneers And Ancestors, Whom We Rightly Praise For Having Overcome The Adversities In The Wilderness Trek, Will Praise Today’s Faithful For Having Made Their Way Successfully Through A Desert Of Despair And For Having Passed Through A Cultural Wilderness, While Still Keeping The Faith.

The Submissive Will Make It Through To That Final Scene, For The Word Of God Will Lead The Man And Woman Of Christ "in A Straight And Narrow Course Across That Everlasting Gulf Of Misery . . . And Land Their Souls . . . At The Right Hand Of God In The Kingdom, To Sit Down With Abraham, And Isaac, And With Jacob, And With All Our Holy Fathers" (helaman 3:30) "who Have Been Ever Since The World Began . . . To Go No More Out."

God's Anger Is Kindled Not Because We Have Harmed Him But Because We Have Harmed Ourselves.

How Can You And I Really Expect To Glide Naively Through Life, As If To Say, 'lord, Give Me Experience, But Not Grief, Not Sorrow, Not Pain, Not Opposition, Not Betrayal, And Certainly Not To Be Forsaken. Keep From Me, Lord, All Those Experiences Which Made Thee What Thou Art! Then, Let Me Come And Dwell With Thee And Fully Share Thy Joy!'

No Love Is Ever Wasted. Its Worth Does Not Lie In Reciprocity.

We Must Endure The Contempt Of Others Without Reciprocating That Contempt.

Promptings For Us To Do Good Come From The Holy Ghost. These Promptings Nudge Us Further Along The Straight And Narrow Path Of Discipleship. The Natural Man Doesn't Automatically Think Of Doing Good. It Isn't Natural. How Many People Worry About The Car Behind Them Or The Person Below Them? The Natural Man Just Doesn't Do It. For Us, However, These Promptings Enlarge Our Awareness Of Other People's Needs And Then Prod Us To Act Accordingly.

Frequently, We Busily Search For Group Service Projects, Which Are Surely Needed And Commendable, When Quiet, Personal Service Is Also Urgently Needed. Sometimes The Completing Of An Occasional Group Service Project Ironically Salves Our Consciences When, In Fact, We Are Constantly Surrounded By A Multitude Of Opportunities For Individual Service. In Serving, As In True Worship, We Need To Do Some Things Together And Some Things Personally. Our Spiritual Symmetry Is Our Own Responsibility, And Balance Is So Important.

Power Is Most Safe With Those Who Are Not In Love With It!

Patient Endurance Permits Us To Cling To Our Faith In The Lord And Our Faith In His Timing When We Are Being Tossed About By The Surf Of Circumstance. Even When A Seeming Undertow Grasps Us, Somehow, In The Tumbling, We Are Being Carried Forward, Though Battered And Bruised.

It Is Better To Trust And Sometimes Be Disappointed Than To Be Forever Mistrusting And Be Right Occasionally.

For Some Church Members The Book Of Mormon Remains Unread. Others Use It Occasionally As If It Were Merely A Handy Book Of Quotations. Still Others Accept And Read It But Do Not Really Explore And Ponder It. The Book Is To Be Feasted Upon, Not Nibbled (see 2 Nephi 31:20).

A Society Which Permits Anything Will Eventually Lose Everything.

While Most Of Our Suffering Is Self- Inflicted, Some Is Caused By Or Permitted By God. This Sobering Reality Calls For Deep Submissiveness, Especially When God Does Not Remove The Cup From Us. In Such Circumstances, When Reminded About The Premortal Shouting For Joy As This Life's Plan Was Unfolded (job 38:7), We Can Perhaps Be Pardoned If, In Some Moments, We Wonder What All The Shouting Was About.

If We Knew How Often The Obedience Of Others Is Affected By Our Own, And How Often Our Stepping Forth Soon Brings Forth A Whole Platton Of Helpers, And How Often Our Speaking Forth Soon Creates A Chorus - We Would Be Even More Ashamed Of Our Slackess And Our Silence.

Listen To These Wounds Of Pain Put In The Form Of Questions To Me By A Young Woman Who Had Had Two Abortions: "i Wonder About The Spirits Of Those I Had Aborted, If They Were There, If They Were Hurt? I Was Under Three Months Each Time, But A Mother Feels Life Before She Feels Movement." "i Wonder If They Are Lost And Alone?" "i Wonder If They Will Ever Have A Body?" "i Wonder If I Will Ever Have A Chance Again To Bring Those Spirits Back As Mine?" Alas, Brothers And Sisters, "wickedness Never Was Happiness" (alma 41:10).

Perfect Love Is Perfectly Patient.

Patience Is Tied Very Closely To Faith In Our Heavenly Father. Actually, When We Are Unduly Impatient, We Are Suggesting That We Know What Is Best—better Than Does God. Or, At Least, We Are Asserting That Our Timetable Is Better Than His. We Can Grow In Faith Only If We Are Willing To Wait Patiently For God's Purposes And Patterns To Unfold In Our Lives, On His Timetable.

Repentance Is A Rescuing, Not A Dour, Doctrine.

We Cannot Repent For Someone Else. But We Can Forgive Someone Else, Refusing To Hold Hostage Those Whom The Lord Seeks To Set Free!

Pure Religion Is Having The Courage To Do What Is Right And Let The Consequence Follow.

Crowds Cannot Make Right What God Has Declared To Be Wrong.

The Unwillingness Of Most Leaders To Set Standards, To Administer Feedback When Standards Are Not Met, To Praise Clearly When Standards Are Met, Stands In The Way Of The Development Of Excellence. The Leader Who Makes No Demands Of His Disciples Cannot Really Lead Them At All. The Sense Of New Excitement And New Challenge Generated By The Gospel Will Be Blunted By Leaders Who Shield Followers From The Full Demands Of Fellowship.

We Are Vulnerable If We Can Be Taken By A Wave Of Emotion, Invaded By An Invidious Impulse, Roughed Up By Resentment, Or Engulfed By A Surge Of Selfishness.

Ironically, As Some People Become Harder, They Use Softer Words To Describe Dark Deeds. This, Too, Is Part Of Being Sedated By Secularism. Needless Abortion, For Instance, Is A "reproductive Health Procedure, . . ." "illegitimacy" Gives Way To The Wholly Sanitized Words "non-marital Birth" Or "alternative Parenting."

We Cannot Improve The World If We Are Conformed To The World.

I Find That Goal Setting, When Done This Way, Leads To Goal Achieving. The Chronic Failure To Achieve Goals Lowers Self-esteem. Show Me A Failure To Achieve A Goal, And Usually I Can Show You The Violation Of One Or More Of The Above Criteria. Imposed Goals, Vague Goals, And Unrealistic Goals Tend To Produce Only Partial Successes And Outright Failures.

We Can Be Walking Witnesses And Standing Sermons To Which Objective Onlookers Can Say A Quiet Amen.

Our Goals Should Stretch Us Bit By Bit. So Often When We Think We Have Encountered A Ceiling, It Is Really A Psychological Or Experiential Barrier That We Have Built Ourselves. We Built It And We Can Remove It.

Walking And Overcoming By Faith Is Not Easy. For One Thing, The Dimension Of Time Constantly Constrains Our Perspective. Likewise, The World Steadily Tempts Us. No Wonder We Are Given Instructive Words From Jesus About The Narrowness And The Straightness Of The Only Path Available To Return Home: “i Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life” (john 14:6). And Then He Said, “no Man Cometh Unto The Father, But By Me.” Jesus Laid Down Strict Conditions.

Our Little Pebble Of Poor Performance Helps To Start, Or To Sustain, An Avalanche.

A Narcissist Society, In Which Each Person Is Busy Looking Out For Number One, Can Build Neither Brotherhood Nor Community. Aren't We Glad In This Easter Season And In All Seasons That Jesus Did Not Selfishly Look Out For Number One? No Wonder We Have Been Told, 'thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me,' And This Includes Self-worship! (ex. 20:3; Emphasis Added). One Way Or Another, The Grossly Selfish Will Finally Be Shattered, Whimpering, Against The Jagged, Concrete Consequences Of Their Selfishness.

To Be Cheerful When Others Are In Despair, To Keep The Faith When Others Falter, To Be True Even When We Feel Forsaken—all Of These Are Deeply Desired Outcomes During The Deliberate, Divine Tutorials Which God Gives To Us—because He Loves Us. These Learning Experiences Must Not Be Misread As Divine Indifference. Instead, Such Tutorials Are A Part Of The Divine Unfolding.

Our Journey Is Demanding Enough That The Need For Reassurance As Well As Reminders Is Constant.

Ultimate Hope Constitutes The Anchor Of The Soul.

Even If Work Were Not An Economic Necessity, It Is A Spiritual Necessity.

The Flame Of Family Can Warm Us And At The Same Time Be A Perpetual Pilot Light To Rekindle Us.

If We Entertain Temptations, Soon They Begin Entertaining Us!

Sometimes, If You're Like Me, [god] Will Brace Or Reprove In A Highly Personal Process Not Understood Or Appreciated By Those Outside The Context.

The Charity Of Good Women Is Such That Their 'love Makes No Parade'; They Are Not Glad 'when Others Go Wrong'; They Are Too Busy Serving To Sit Statusfully About, Waiting To Be Offended.

Therefore, As We Strive To Become As The Father Is And As Jesus Is, We Are To Become More Gracious And Merciful, More Kind And Considerate. Even More, We Are To Do This In A World Which Does Little To Encourage Such Qualities Of Character.

The Truth Is That Not Yet Usually Means Never. Trying To Run Away From The Responsibility To Decide About Christ Is Childish. Pilate Sought To Refuse Responsibility For Deciding About Christ, But Pilate's Hands Were Never Dirtier Than Just After He Had Washed Them.

The Imperfections Of Others Never Release Us From The Need To Work On Our Own Shortcomings.

The Submission Of One's Will Is Really The Only Uniquely Personal Thing We Have To Place On God's Altar. The Many Other Things We 'give' Are Actually The Things He Has Already Given Or Loaned To Us.

The "new" In Us Is Bound To Notice The "old" That Remains.

As We Come Closer To Him, We Not Only "stand All Amazed"-we Even Kneel All Amazed!

The More Seriously We Work On Our Own Imperfections, The Less We Are Judgemental Of The Imperfections Of Others.

Men And Women Of Christ Magnify Their Callings Without Magnifying Themselves.

When We Don't Like To Face Up To Hard Facts, We Use Soft Words. We Do Not Speak About Killing A Baby Within The Womb, But About "termination Of Potential Life." Words Are Often Multiplied To Try To Cover Dark Deeds.

C. S. Lewis Pointed Out That Some People Are Angry With God For His Not Existing, And Others For His Existing But For Failing To Do As Mortals Would Have Him Do. Instead Of Such Childishness, We Are Urged To Know God And To Learn Of His Attributes.

Enthusiasm Needs To Be Effective Enthusiasm. We Must Distinguish Between The Contribution And Enthusiasm Of The Cheerleader And The Enthusiasm Of The Player. While Cheerleaders Serve An Important Purpose, The Real Contest Involves Players On The Field Or On The Court Of Life. We Must Not Go Through Life Acting Only As Enthusiastic Cheerleaders Available For Hire; We Must Be Anxiously And Personally Engaged.

Every Dimension Of The Gospel Is Relevant To One Or More Of Our Social And Political Problems Of Our Time.

Your Task Is To Conquer Yourselves, Not Ships, Lands And Castles. This Battle Is The One In Which You Especially Are To 'come Off Conqueror.' It Is Fought Every Day. In Fact, It Is A Continuing Process Which Commenced A Long, Long Time Ago.

Many Of Those Engaged In A Lemming-like March To The Sea Are Proud Of Their Individualism.

I Have On My Office Wall A Wise And Useful Reminder By Anne Morrow Lindbergh Concerning One Of The Realities Of Life. She Wrote, "my Life Cannot Implement In Action The Demands Of All The People To Whom My Heart Responds." That's Good Counsel For Us All, Not As An Excuse To Forgo Duty, But As A Sage Point About Pace And The Need For Quality In Relationships.

Oh, How Great The Plan Of Our God!

I Thank The Savior Personally; For Bearing All Which I Added To His Hemorrhaging At Every Pore For All Humanity In Gethsemane. I Thank Him For Bearing What I Added To The Decibels Of His Piercing Soul Cry Atop Calvary.

The More Quickly We Loosen Our Grip On The Things Of The World The More Firmly We Can Take Hold Of The Things Of Eternity.

A Patient Willingness To Defer Dividends Is A Hallmark Of Individual Maturity.

When Great Individuals Move So Marvelously Along The Straight And Narrow Path, It Is Unseemly Of Us To Call Attention To The Fact That One Of Their Shoelaces Is Untied As They Make The Journey.

The Laughter Of The World Is Merely Loneliness Pathetically Trying To Reassure Itself.

When Our Minds Really Catch Hold Of The Significance Of Jesus' Atonement, The World's Hold On Us Loosens.

When, As President Joseph F. Smith Said, We "catch A Spark From The Awakened Memories Of The Immortal Soul, "let Us Be Quietly Grateful. When Of Great Truths We Can Say "i Know," That Powerful Spiritual Witness May Also Carry With It The Sense Of Our Having Known Before. With Rediscovery, We Are Really Saying "i Know - Again!"

A Few Little Flowers Will Spring Up Briefly In The Dry Gulley Through Which Torrents Of Water Pass Occasionally. But It Is Steady Streams That Bring Thick And Needed Crops. In The Agriculture Of The Soul That Has To Do With Nurturing Attributes, Flash Floods Are No Substitute For Regular Irrigation.

I Testify That He Is Utterly Incomparable In What He Is, What He Knows, What He Has Accomplished And What He Has Experienced. Yet, Movingly, He Calls Us His Friends

In The Economy Of Heaven, God Does Not Send Thunder If A Still, Small Voice Is Enough, Or A Prophet If A Priest Can Do The Job.

Regarding Trials, Including Of Our Faith And Patience, There Are No Exemptions-only Variations.

Mercy Can Purge The Soul Of Sin, Making Room For A Fresh Start. Truth Is Vital In Order That We Have An Unvarying Standard By Which To Determine What We Are To Be And To Do And What We Are To Rid Ourselves Of. All The Cardinal Virtues, Therefore, Carry Their Own Intrinsic As Well As Outward Reward. A Merciful Man Does Do Good To His Own Soul.

I Thank The Father That His Only Begotten Son Did Not Say In Defiant Protest At Calvary, "my Body Is My Own!" I Stand In Admiration Of Women Today Who Resist The "fashion Of Abortion, By Refusing To Make The Sacred Womb A Tomb!"

It Is So Easy To Be Confrontive Without Being Informative; Indignant Without Being Intelligent; Impulsive Without Being Insightful.

Long Ago When A Child Lay In A Manger, A Special Star Appeared. It Didn't Just Show Up That Evening. It Had To Have Been Placed In Its Orbit Centuries Before In A Trajectory That Would Make It Appear At That Special Moment Of Time To Announce The Birth Of A Special Child. Just As There Is Divine Design In The Universe, So Each Of Us Has Been Placed In Our Own Orbits In This Life To Love, To Serve, To Help Light The World.

The Enlarging Of The Soul Requires Not Only Some Remodeling, But Some Excavating.

These Transcending Truths Restructure Our Understanding Of Ourselves And Of The Universe And Bring Within Our View Resplendent Reality. To Be Seen Only By Those Who Have Eyes To See, These Flakes Of Fire Are Embedded In The Holy Scriptures. There These Tr.

In Gospel Grammar, Death Is Not An Exclamation Point, Merely A Comma.

Exclamation Points

The Dues Of Discipleship Are High Indeed, And How Much We Can Take So Often Determines How Much We Can Then Give.

All Crosses Are Easier To Carry When We Keep Moving.

It Is Our Job To Lift Others Up, Not To Size Them Up.

We Can Hold To The Iron Rod Even If Others Slip Away And A Few End Up Mocking Us From "the Great And Spacious Building."

Listening Is One Of The Forms Of Love.

Don't Fear, Just Live Right.

If We Are Serious About Our Discipleship, Jesus Will Eventually Request Each Of Us To Do Those Very Things Which Are Most Difficult For Us To Do.

By Seeing Life's Experiences On Through To The End, On Our Small Scale We Can Finally Say, As Jesus Did On The Cross, "it Is Finished". We Too Can Then Have "finished [our] Preparations," Having Done The Particular Work God Gave Each Of Us To Do.

I Know The Celestial Criteria Measure Service, Not Status; The Use Of Our Talents, Not The Relative Size Of Our Talent Inventories. I Know That Church Membership Is Not Passive Security But Continuing Opportunity.

True Discipleship Is For Volunteers Only. Only Volunteers Will Trust The Guide Sufficiently To Follow Him In The Dangerous Ascent Which Only He Can Lead.

A New Calling Can Beckon Us Away From Comfortable Routine And From Competencies Already Acquired.

If The Kingdom Of God Is Not First, It Doesn't Matter What's Second.

At The Center Of Our Agency Is Our Freedom To Form A Healthy Attitude Toward Whatever Circumstances We Are Placed In!

Stubborn Selfishness Leads Otherwise Good People To Fight Over Herds, Patches Of Sand, And Strippings Of Milk. All This Results From What The Lord Calls Coveting "the Drop," While Neglecting The "more Weighty Matters." (d&c 117:8) Myopic Selfishness Magnifies A Mess Of Pottage And Makes Thirty Pieces Of Silver Look Like A Treasure Trove. In Our Intense Acquisitiveness, We Forget Him Who Once Said, "what Is Property Unto Me?"

Faith In God Includes Faith In God's Timing.

Those Who Turn Against The Church Do So To Play To Their Own Private Gallery, But When, One Day, The Applause Has Died Down And The Cheering Has Stopped, They Will Face A Smaller Audience, The Judgment Bar Of God.

In A 'wheat And Tares' World, How Unusually Blessed Faithful Members Are To Have The Precious And Constant Gift Of The Holy Ghost With Reminders Of What Is Right And Of The Covenants We Have Made. 'for Behold, ... The Holy Ghost ... Will Show Unto You All Things What Ye Should Do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever The Decibels Of Decadence, These Need Not Overwhelm The Still, Small Voice! Some Of The Best Sermons We Will Ever Hear Will Be Thus Prompted From The Pulpit Of Memory—to An Audience Of One!

The Book Of Mormon Is To Be Feasted Upon, Not Nibbled.

It Is Understandable How Some People Could Give Way To This Kind Of Pervasive Pessimism, But We Speak Of A Gospel Which Brings Good Tidings Of Great Joy And This Must Be Reflected In Our Lives, If We Are To Be Believable Especially As We Suggest To Others That There Is, In Fact, Not Only A Better Way, But Also The Way. Scriptures That Speak Of Man As A Being Who "might Have Joy" Have More Impact When Falling From The Lips Or Pens Of Men And Women Whose Lives Give Fresh Evidence Of The Validity Of That Scripture.

We Can Be Of So Much Service To Others In Many Thou-shalt Ways. Of Course, The Problem Is That Rendering Such Service Takes Time, And We Are All So Busy. Some Situations May Call For Service That Somehow Seems To Be Beneath Us. Besides, We Have Other Things To Do. The Thou Shalts Are So Convenient To Put Off. Who Will Notice The Procrastination Anyway? After All, We Are Not Robbing A Bank. Or Are There Forms Of Withholding That Constitute Stealing?

Procrastination

Joshua Didn't Say Choose You Next Year Whom You Will Serve; He Spoke Of "this Day," While There Is Still Daylight And Before The Darkness Becomes More And More Normal.

It Is Only By Yielding To God That We Can Begin To Realize His Will For Us. And If We Truly Trust God, Why Not Yield To His Loving Omniscience? After All, He Knows Us And Our Possibilities Much Better Than Do We.

Men's And Nations' Finest Hour Consist Of Those Moments When Extraordinary Challenge Is Met By Extraordinary Response. Hence In Those Darkest Hours, We Must Light Our Individual Candles Rather Than Vying With Others To Call Attention To The Enveloping Darkness. Our Indignation About Injustice Should Lead To Illumination, For If It Does Not, We Are Only Adding To The Despair-and The Moment Of Gravest Danger Is When There Is So Little Light That Darkness Seems Normal!

As Parenting Declines, The Need For Policing Increases. There Will Always Be A Shortage Of Police If There Is A Shortage Of Effective Parents! Likewise, There Will Not Be Enough Prisons If There Are Not Enough Good Homes.

Truly We Work And Live On A Streetful Of Splendid People, Whom We Are To Love And Serve Even If They Are Uninterested In Us!

A Friend Of Mine Who Passed Through A Most Severe Trial, When I Discussed It With Him, He Said Simply, If It’s Fair, It Isn’t A Trial.

It Is Extremely Important For You To Believe In Yourselves, Not Only For What You Are Now, But For What You Have The Power To Become.

We...live In A World That Is Too Prone To The Tasteless, And We Need To Provide An Opportunity To Cultivate A Taste For The Finest Music. And, Likewise, We’re In A World That’s So Attuned To The Now That We Need To Permit People To Be More Attuned To The Best Music Of All Ages.

It Is Possible To Know When, At Least Basically, We Please God. In Fact, Joseph Smith Taught That One Of The Conditions Of Genuine Faith Is To Have "an Actual Knowledge That The Course Of Life Which [one] Is Pursuing Is According To [god's] Will."

Sometimes We Are So Busy Being The Hammer Or The Anvil, That We Forget Who Really Needs The Shaping.

The Issue For Us Is Trusting God Enough To Trust Also His Timing. If We Can Truly Believe He Has Our Welfare At Heart, May We Not Let His Plans Unfold As He Thinks Best?

There Is No Democracy Of Facts.

Thus Worshiping, Serving, Studying, Praying, Each In Its Own Way Squeezes Selfishness Out Of Us; Pushes Aside Our Preoccupations With The Things Of The World.

Education Brightens A Darkened World.

Personal, Spiritual Symmetry Emerges Only From The Shaping Of Prolonged Obedience. Twigs Are Bent, Not Snapped Into Shape.

Patience Stoutly Resists Pulling Up The Daisies To See How The Roots Are Doing!

Do Not Let The Future Be Held Hostage By The Past

Life Is An 'open-book' Exam, But The Problem Is That Most Of The Students Don't Have The 'book', Or Refuse To Open It-a Fact That Ought To Spur Us On As Church Members To Share The Gospel More Widely So That Life Would Be Meaningful For More People.

The Savior Knows What It's Like To Die Of Cancer.

It Is One Of The Great Ironies Of Human History That Some Mortals With Incorrect Understanding Of God And Life's Purposes Sometimes Scold God Because Of The Abundance Of Human Misery And Suffering-which, Indeed, Lies All About Us. Such Individuals Almost Dare God To Demonstrate His Existence By Straightening Things Out-and At Once! But He Is A Much Different Kind Of Father Than That. Surely It Is Requisite To Eternal Life That We Come To Know God And Jesus Christ Whom He Has Sent (see John 17:3).

During Our Mortal Schooling In Submissiveness, We Will See The Visible Crosses That Some Carry, But Other Crosses Will Go Unseen. A Few Individuals May Appear To Have No Trials At All, Which, If It Were So, Would Be A Trial In Itself. Indeed, If, As Do Trees, Our Souls Had Rings To Measure The Years Of Greatest Personal Growth, The Wide Rings Would Likely Reflect The Years Of Greatest Moisture-but From Tears, Not Rainfall.

We Must Not Fail, Individually, For If We Fail, We Fail Twice - For Ourselves And For Those Who Could Have Been Helped, If We Had Done Our Duty.

How Myopic It Is To View His Ministry As All Crucifixion And No Resurrection!

If One Is Devoid Of Hope And Thanksgiving, He Cannot For Long Remain Sinless, For He Will, In Despair, Have Slackened His Resolve. Feelings Of Futility Foster Vulnerability. Self-pity Is Such A Busy Stagehand, Rearranging The Scenery To Help Sin Make Its Entrance. No Wonder The Prophets Say That Without Faith In The Lord, There Is No Hope.

The Mortal Experience . . . Is Not Like A College Course Which We Can Passively Audit. Instead, We Are Taking Life's Course For Credit And There Are No Summers Off - Not Even Semester Breaks.

Patience Helps Us To View Imperfections In Others More Generously To The End That We May Learn To Be More Wise Than They Have Been.

Love Is Never Wasted, Even If It Is Not Reciprocated.

When One Comes To Know God And His Son Jesus Christ Through The Scriptures, The Spirit, And Personal Revelation, It Is Impossible To Feel Anything Other Than Overwhelmed By The Attributes So Perfectly Developed In Them And So Tentatively And Superficially Developed In Oneself. Even So, We Are Told To Strive To Become Like Them.

Ultimate Hope And Daily Grumpiness Are Not Reconcilable.

Letting Off Steam Always Produces More Heat Than Light.

God Is Very Serious About Joy In The Lives Of His Children.

God Does Not Begin By Asking Us About Our Ability, But Only About Our Availability, And If We Then Prove Our Dependability, He Will Increase Our Capability.

God, As A Loving Father, Will Stretch Our Souls At Times. The Soul Is Like A Violin String: It Makes Music Only When It Is Stretched. . . . God Will Tutor Us By Trying Us Because He Loves Us, Not Because Of Indifference!

On The Straight And Narrow Path, There Are Simply No Corners To Be Cut.

Just As Meekness Is In All Our Virtues, So Is Pride In All Our Sins. Whatever Its Momentary And Alluring Guise, Pride Is The Enemy, "the First Of The Sins." One Reason To Be Particularly On Guard Against Pride Is That "the Devilish Strategy Of Pride Is That It Attacks Us, Not In Our Weakest Points, But In Our Strongest. It Is Preeminently The Sin Of The Noble Mind." Not Only Of The Noble Mind, But Also Of The Semi-righteous.

The Cumulative Weight Of All Mortal Sins--past, Present, And Future--pressed Upon That Perfect, Sinless, And Sensitive Soul! All Our Infirmities And Sicknesses Were Somehow, Too, A Part Of The Awful Arithmetic Of The Atonement. (see Alma 7:11-12; Isa. 53:3-5; Matt. 8:17.) The Anguished Jesus Not Only Pled With The Father That The Hour And Cup Might Pass From Him, But With This Relevant Citation. 'and He Said, Abba, Father, All Things Are Possible Unto Thee; Take Away This Cup From Me.' (mark 14:35-36.)

The Lord Knows Our Bearing Capacity, Both As To Coping And To Comprehending, And He Will Not Give Us More To Bear Than We Can Manage At The Moment, Though To Us It May Seem Otherwise. Just As No Temptations Will Come To Us From Which We Cannot Escape Or Which We Cannot Bear, We Will Not Be Given More Trials Than We Can Sustain.

Our Inspired Constitution Is Wisely Designed To Protect From Excesses Of Political Power, But It Can Do Little To Protect Us From The Excesses Of Appetite Or From Individual Indifference To Great Principles Or Institutions. Any Significant Unraveling Of The Moral Fiber Of The American People, Therefore, Finally Imperils The Constitution.

Spent Time-like A Spent Bullet-tells Us Much About Its "processor." For We See Not Only The Residual Slug, But Indicators Of How Spent Time Is Grooved By A Man's Soul, A Reliable Indicator Of What A Man Is Like.

Do Not Write A Check With Your Tongue That Your Actions Cannot Cash.

To Think Of Enduring To The End As ‘hanging In There,’ Doing One’s Duty Relentlessly, Is Not Inaccurate. Yet Enduring To The End Is More Than Outlasting And Surviving, Though It Includes Those Qualities. We Are Called Upon, As Was The Prophet Joseph, To ‘endure It Well,’ Gracefully, Not Grudgingly. (d&c 121:8.) We Are Also Told That We Must ‘endure In Faith.’ (d&c 101:35.) These Dimensions Of Enduring Are Important To Note. Likewise, We Are Asked To Endure ‘valiantly.’ (d&c 121:29.)

Enduring To The End

There Are Also Flat Periods In Life Which May Well Be The Periods During Which-before New Lessons Come- The Past Lessons Of Life Are Allowed To Seep, Quietly And Deeply, Into The Marrow Of The Soul. These Outwardly Flat Periods, When Enduring Well May Not Seem Very Purposeful,, Are Probably The Times When Needed Attitudinal Alignments Are Quietly Occurring.

There Will Be Many Fine And Wonderful Men And Women Of All Races And Creeds-and Of No Religious Creeds At All-who Will Lead Decent And Useful Lives.

We May Never Become Accustomed To Untrue And Unjust Criticism Of Us But We Ought Not To Be Immobilized By It.

Unjust Criticism

Pray For Me To Learn Quickly What I Need To Learn.

Although Goal Setting Can Clearly Be Overdone, Only A Few People Are Overly Involved With Goals And Goal Setting; Most People Do Far Too Little Goal Setting, Including The Reflecting That Precedes The Setting Of Such Goals. Too Many Marriages Have Financial Goals But Not Other Explicit Goals. Yet The Gospel Is Certainly Goal-oriented.

Financial Goals

Let The Scriptures Refresh You.

Beware Not To Get Caught Up In The Thick Of Thin Things.

If The Nearly One-and-a-half Million Babies Aborted In America Each Year Could, Somehow, Vote, Chameleon Candidates Would Find Fresh Reason To Be Concerned About Abortion, Whereas Now They Are Unconcerned.

Naive Optimism And Pervasive Pessimism Are Both To Be Avoided, Therefore. It's Not An Easy Balance To Maintain, To Be Asked To Work Away In The Ninevehs Of Our Lives Without Being So Conscious Of The Coming Cataclysm That We Are Not Serious Citizens Of Our Communities And Nations. By Living And Sharing The Gospel Of Jesus Christ, We Are Doing The Most Relevant Thing We Can Do By Way Of Helping. (there Are Civic And Other Chores To Be Done, Of Course.) Day In And Day Out, The Gospel Is The One Thing That Is Most Relevant, And We Are To Be Of Good Cheer.

In Racing Marathons, One Does Not See The Dropouts Make Fun Of Those Who Continue; Failed Runners Actually Cheer On Those Who Continue The Race, Wishing They Were Still In It. Not So With The Marathon Of Discipleship In Which Some Dropouts Then Make Fun Of The Spiritual Enterprise Of Which They Were So Recently A Part!

Unproductive Worry - Like Parkinson's Proverbial Law - Tends To Expand To Fill The Time Available.

Time Management Tips: One Can Make A Radar-like Sweep Of The Horizon To Identify Time And Task Challenges While These Are Still Manageable And While We Still Have A Choice. The Organizational Adage, "the More Parts, The More Trouble," Also Applies To Words. Multiplying Words May Actually Multiply The Probability Of Being Misunderstood; Economies In Expression (without Being Taciturn Or Aloof) Not Only Save Time, But Usually Are More Honest And More Clear.

Trials And Tribulations Tend To Squeeze The Artificiality Out Of Us, Leaving The Essence Of What We Really Are And Clarifying What We Really Yearn For.

All Of Us Must Walk The Same Strait And Narrow Path, Know The Same Kind Of Experiences As Those We Would Seek To Lead And To Serve. There Is Not One Strait And Narrow Path For The Officers-the Chosen-and Another For The Enlisted Men. We Are All To Experience Life "according To The Flesh"; There Is No Other Way, For It Is The Way To Immortality And Eternal Life. Given The Resplendent Riches Of The Promised Kingdom, Why Would Anyone Wish To Walk Another Path Than The One That Leads Us Back To Our Gracious And Merciful Father In Heaven?

We Are In Bondage To That Which Overcomes Us. See Also 2 Peter 2:19.

What We Insistently Desire, Over Time, Is What We Become.

Endurance Involves Much More Than Putting Up With A Situation; Patient Endurance Is More Than Pacing Up And Down Within The Cell Of Circumstance. True Enduring Represents Not Merely The Passage Of Time, . . . But The Passage Of Soul.

Selfishness Is Much More Than An Ordinary Problem Because It Activates All The Cardinal Sins! It Is The Detonator In The Breaking Of The Ten Commandments.

Occasionally Some Individuals Let The Seeming Ordinariness Of Life Dampen Their Spirits. Though Actually Coping And Growning, Others Lack The Quiet, Inner-soul Satisfaction That Can Steady Them, And Are Experiencing Instead, A Lingering Sense That There Is Something More Important They Should Be Doing . . .as If What Is Quietly Achieved In Righteous Individual Living Or In Parenthood Are Not Sufficiently Spectacular.

Meekness, The Subtraction Of Self, Reduces The Multiplication Of Words.

Defectors Often Cause More Difficulty Than Disinterested Disbelievers.

If We Spent As Much Time Lifting Our Children As We Do Criticizing Them, How Effectively We Could Help Them To See Themselves In A More Positive Light!

Consecration Thus Constitutes The Only Unconditional Surrender Which Is Also A Total Victory!

The Authority Of Example And Considerations Of Character, Unlike Pudding, Are Not Whipped Up In An Instant.

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