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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.

-Neal A. Maxwell

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It Is Understandable How

Neal A. Maxwell

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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.

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

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

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.

Though We Live In A Failing World, We Have Not Been Sent Here To Fail.

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!

Obviously, Family Values Mirror Our Personal Priorities. Given The Gravity Of Current Conditions, Would Parents Be Willing To Give Up Just One Outside Thing, Giving That Time And Talent Instead To The Family.

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.

Though We Have Rightly Applauded Our Ancestors For Their Spiritual Achievements ... Those Of Us Who Prevail Today Will Have Done No Small Thing.

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

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.

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

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

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

Unjust Criticism

The Lord Doesn't Ask About Your Ability, Only Your Availability; And, If You Prove Your Dependability, The Lord Will Increase Your Capability.

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!'

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!.

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.

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.

Sometimes The Best People... Have The Worst Experiences... Because They Are Ready To Learn

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.

Faith In God Includes Faith In God's Timing.

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!

Blessed Is He Who Will Not Be Offended

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.

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.

So Much Depends, Therefore, Upon Our Maintaining Gospel Perspective In The Midst Of Ordinariness, The Pressures Of Temptation, Tribulation, Deprivation, And The Cares Of The World.

The Cavity Which Suffering Carves Into Our Souls Will One Day Also Be The Receptacle Of Joy.

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.

Of All The Errors One Could Make, God's Gospel Plan Is The Wrong Thing To Be Wrong About.

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Listening Is One Of The Forms Of Love.

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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.

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

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

If We Entertain Temptations, Soon They Begin Entertaining Us!

Don't Fear, Just Live Right.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

Having Faith In The Plan Of Salvation Includes Steadfastly Refusing To Be Diverted From Our True Identities And Responsibilities. In The Brief Season Of Our Existence On Earth We May Serve As A Plumber, Professor, Farmer, Physician, Mechanic, Bookkeeper, Or Teacher. These Are Useful Activities And Honorable Designations; But A Temporary Vocation Is Not Reflective Of Our True Identities. Matthew Was A Tax Collector, Luke A Physician, And Peter A Fisherman. In A Salvational Sense, 'so What!'

For The Faithful, Our Finest Hours Are Sometimes During Or Just Following Our Darkest Hours.

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

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

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

Some Mothers In Today's World Feel "cumbered" By Home Duties And Are Thus Attracted By Other More "romantic" Challenges. Such Women Could Make The Same Error Of Perspective That Martha Made. The Woman, For Instance, Who Deserts The Cradle In Order To Help Defend Civilization Against The Barbarians May Well Later Meet, Among The Barbarians, Her Own Neglected Child.

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.

There Is No Democracy Of Facts.

Ironically, Brothers And Sisters, The Natural Man Who Is So Very Selfish In So Many Ordinary Ways Is Strangely Unselfish In That He Reaches For Too Few Of The Things That Bring Real Joy. He Settles For A Mess Of Pottage Instead Of Eternal Joy.

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

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.

Like Jesus, We Can Decide, Daily Or Instantly, To Give No Heed To Temptation (see D&c 20:22). We Can Respond To Irritation With A Smile Instead Of Scowl, Or By Giving Warm Praise Instead Of Icy Indifference. By Our Being Understanding Instead Of Abrupt, Others, In Turn, May Decide To Hold On A Little Longer Rather Than To Give Way. Love, Patience, And Meekness Can Be Just As Contagious As Rudeness And Crudeness.

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

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

We Are Often Not Only To Slow To Get On Our Knees, But To Quick To Rise From Them.

In A Very Real Sense, All We Need To Know Is That God Knows All.

The Overwhelming Joy Of Conversion Or A New Calling Is Often Followed By Feelings Of Being Overwhelmed With Duties And Doctrines. The First Joyous Feelings Are Real And Give One Much-needed Initial Momentum. But The Genuine Exhilaration Is Soon Followed By The Need To Perspire And To Pedal.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Real Disciples Absorb The Fiery Darts Of The Adversary By Holding Aloft The Quenching Shield Of Faith With One Hand, While Holding To The Iron Rod With The Other (see Eph. 6:16; 1 Ne. 15:24; D&c 27:17). There Should Be No Mistaking; It Will Take Both Hands!

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

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.

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.

One Day The Faithful Will Have It All!

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

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).

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!"

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!

Time Management Tips: The Perpetual Processing Of The Same Temptation Is Both Dangerous And Time-wasting. Cycling And Recycling The Same Temptation (instead Of Rejecting Such Blandishment Out Of Hand) Is Not Only To Risk One's Soul, Again And Again, But Is To Bring On Fatigue, So That The Adversary May Be Able To Do Indirectly What We Will Not Let Him Do Directly. A Lack Of Decisiveness In Dealing With Temptation Ties Up Our Thought Processes And Prevents Us From Doing Good With The Time Allotted To Us.

Eventually, There Will Not Be Enough Prisons If There Are Not Enough Good Homes.

Looking For Honest Ways To Lift One Another Would . . . Be More Beneficial To Our Own Self-esteem, For We Would See More Good In Ourselves. We Would Cease To Be So Critical Of Our Weaknesses And Would Find Ways To Allow Our Weaknesses To Become Strengths With God's Help.

We Cannot Lead Or Draw Others To Christ Unless We Stand Closer To Him Than They Do.

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

The Gross Size Of Our Talent Inventories Is Less Important Than The Net Use Of Our Talents?

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.

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

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

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

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."

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.

You Rock A Sobbing Child Without Wondering If Today's World Is Passing You By, Because You Know You Hold Tomorrow Tightly In Your Arms.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Any Assessment Of Where We Stand In Relationship To Him Tells Us That We Do Not Stand At All. We Kneel.

Conscience Warns Us Not To Sink Our Cleats Too Deeply In Mortal Turf, Which Is So Dangerously Artificial.

Real Hope Is Much More Than Wishful Musing. It Stiffens, Not Slackens, The Spiritual Spine.

Mother Lode Of Learning.

Let Us Have Integrity And Not Write Checks With Our Tongues Which Our Conduct Cannot Cash.

How Can We Truly Understand Who We Are Unless We Know Who We Were And What We Have The Power To Become?

At Times God's Best Pupils Experience The Most Rigorous And Continuous Courses. Eventually Those Who Prove To Be Men Of Christ Will Thereby Become Distinguished Alumni Of Life's School Of Affliction, Graduating With Honors.

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.

How Good You And I Get At Repenting Will Determine How Good Life Is.

Ultimate Hope And Daily Grumpiness Are Not Reconcilable.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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."

Most Of Our Suffering Comes From Sin And Stupidity; It Is, Nevertheless, Very Real, And Growth Can Occur With Real Repentance. But The Highest Source Of Suffering Appears To Be Reserved For The Innocent Who Undergo Divine Tutorial Training.

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

If The Church Were Not True, Our Enemies Would Be Bored Rather Than Threatened, And Acquiescent Rather Than Anxious. Hell Is Moved Only When Things Move Heavenward.

Never Give Up What You Want Most For What You Want Today.

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.

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.

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

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.

Let The Scriptures Refresh You.

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

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

Exclamation Points

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.

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.

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.

Education Brightens A Darkened World.

How Could There Be Refining Fires Without Our Enduring Some Heat?

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.

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

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

Those Few Members Who Desert The Cause Are Abandoning An Oasis To Search For Water In The Desert.

To 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. No Wonder The Prophet Joseph Smith Urged, "let Every Selfish Feeling Be Not Only Buried, But Annihilated" (teachings Of The Prophet Joseph Smith, P. 178). Hence Annihilation - Not Moderation - Is The Destination! . . . Meekness Is The Real Cure, For It Does Not Merely Mask Selfishness But Dissolves It!

The Harrowing Of The Soul Can Be Like The Harrowing Of The Soil; To Increase The Yield, Things Are Turned Upside Down.

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.

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

Each Of Us Is An Innkeeper Who Decides If There Is Room For Jesus!

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.

If We Are Not Serving Jesus, And If He Is Not In Our Thoughts And Hearts, Then The Things Of The World Will Draw Us Instead To Them! Moreover, The Things Of The World Need Not Be Sinister In Order To Be Diverting And Consuming.

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.

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

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!

It Is One Of The Ironies Of Religious History That Many Mortals Err In Their Understanding Of The Nature Of God And End Up Rejecting Not The Real God But Their Own Erroneous And Stereotypical Image Of God. Frequently This Is Because They Have Thought Of God Solely In Terms Of Thunderings At Sinai Without Pondering Substance. . . .

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.

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.

Perfect Love Is Perfectly Patient.

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

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

Clearly, When We Baptize, Our Eyes Should Gaze Beyond The Baptismal Font To The Holy Temple. The Great Garner Into Which The Sheaves Should Be Gathered Is The Holy Temple.

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.

You Must Not Mistake Passing Local Cloud Cover, For General Darkness.

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!"

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?"

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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).

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

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!

A Good Friend, Who Knows Whereof He Speaks, Has Observed Of Trials, ‘if It’s Fair, It Is Not A True Trial!’ That Is, Without The Added Presence Of Some Inexplicableness And Some Irony And Injustice, The Experience May Not Stretch Us Or Lift Us Sufficiently. The Crucifixion Of Christ Was Clearly The Greatest Injustice In Human History, But The Savior Bore Up Under It With Majesty And Indescribable Valor.

Crucifixion Of Christ

I Assume, Gladly, That In The Allocation To America Of Remarkable Leaders Like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, And Abraham Lincoln, The Lord Was Just As Careful. After All, If You've Got Only One Abraham Lincoln, You'd Better Put Him In That Point In History When He's Most Needed-much As Some Of Us Might Like To Have Him Now.

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.

Discouragement Is Not The Absence Of Adequacy But The Absence Of Courage.

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.

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.

Trying To Observe The Slow Shift From Self-centeredness To Empathy Is Like Trying To Watch Grass Grow.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Not The Years But The Changes That Make Us Grow.

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