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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.

-Neal A. Maxwell

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These Really Are Our

Neal A. Maxwell

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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.

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In Contrast To The Path Of Selfishness, There Is No Room For Road Rage On The Straight And Narrow Way.

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

Sir Thomas More Was A Victim Of Injustice And Irony. Generously And Meekly, Just As He Was About To Be Martyred, He Said: Paul . . . Was Present, And Consented To The Death Of St. Stephen, And Kept Their Clothes That Stoned Him To Death, And Yet Be They [stephen And Paul] Now Both Twain Holy Saints In Heaven, And Shall Continue There Friends For Ever, So I Verily Trust And . . . Pray, That Though Your Lordships Have Now Here In Earth Been Judges To My Condemnation, We May Yet Hereafter In Heaven Merrily All Meet Together, To Our Everlasting Salvation.

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.

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.

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

Oh, How Great The Plan Of Our God!

When In Situations Of Stress We Wonder If There Is Any More In Us To Give, We Can Be Comforted To Know That God, Who Knows Our Capacity Perfectly, Placed Us Here To Succeed

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.

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.

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

Mother Lode Of Learning.

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.

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."

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.

Our God Does Not Indulge Us, But He Is Merciful Toward Our Weaknesses As He Strives To Tutor Us.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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 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.

There Is No Democracy Of Facts.

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.

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

Listening Is One Of The Forms Of Love.

When We Are Unduly Impatient With An Omniscient God's Timing, We Really Are Suggesting That We Know What's Best. Strange Isn't It-we Who Wear Wrist Watches Seek To Counsel Him Who Oversees Cosmic Clocks And Calendars.

Blessed Is He Who Will Not Be Offended

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!

Repentance Is A Rescuing, Not A Dour, Doctrine.

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?

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!.

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

When The Real History Of Mankind Is Fully Disclosed, Will It Feature The Echoes Of Gunfire Or The Shaping Sound Of Lullabies? The Great Armistices Made By Military Men Or The Peacemaking Of Women In Homes And In Neighborhoods? Will What Happened In Cradles And Kitchens Prove To Be More Controlling Than What Happened In Congresses? When The Surf Of The Centuries Has Made The Great Pyramids So Much Sand, The Everlasting Family Will Still Be Standing, Because It Is A Celestial Institution, Formed Outside Telestial Time.

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

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

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?"

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

The Hardest Work You And I Will Ever Do Is To Put Off Our Selfishness. It Is Heavy Lifting!

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

Letting Off Steam Always Produces More Heat Than Light.

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.

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!

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.

As You Submit Your Wills To God, You Are Giving Him The Only Thing You Can Actually Give Him That Is Really Yours To Give. Don't Wait Too Long To Find The Altar Or To Begin To Place The Gift Of Your Wills Upon It! No Need To Wait For A Receipt; The Lord Has His Own Special Ways Of Acknowledging.

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!

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

We Should Not Assume; However, That Just Because Something Is Unexplainable By Us, It Is Unexplainable.

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.

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

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.

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

Unjust Criticism

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

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.

The True Christian Is A Communicator.

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

Anger Should Never Be An Overnight Guest.

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.

We Can Tell Much By What We Have Already Willing Discarded Along The Pathway Of Discipleship. It Is The Only Pathway Where Littering Is Permissible, Even Encouraged. In The Early Stages, The Debris Left Behind Includes The Grosser Sins Of Commission. Later Debris Differs; Things Begin To Be Discarded Which Have Caused The Misuse Or Underuse Of Our Time And Talent.

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Perfect Love Is Perfectly Patient.

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

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!

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!

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

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

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

Ultimate Hope Constitutes The Anchor Of The Soul.

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

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.

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: 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.

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

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

Ultimate Hope And Daily Grumpiness Are Not Reconcilable.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Don't Fear, Just Live Right.

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

It's Service, Not Status, That Counts.

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.

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.

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!"

The Great Challenge Is To Refuse To Let The Bad Things That Happen To Us Do Bad Things To Us. That Is The Crucial Difference Between Adversity And Tragedy.

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

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!'

Thus It Is That Our Faith And Trust In Our Heavenly Father, So Far As This Mortal Experience Is Concerned, Consists Not Simply Of Faith And Gladness That He Exists, But Is Also A Faith And Trust That, If We Are Humble, He Will Tutor Us, Aiding Our Acquisition Of Needed Attributes And Experiences While We Are In Mortality. We Trust Not Only The Designer But Also His Design Of Life Itself, Including Our Portion Thereof!

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!

Some Find It Easier To Bend Their Knees Than Their Minds. Exciting Exploration Is Preferred To Plodding Implementation; Speculation Seems More Fun Than Consecration, And So Is Trying To Soften The Hard Doctrines Instead Of Submitting To Them. Worse Still, By Not Obeying, These . . . Lack Real Knowing. Lacking Real Knowing, They Cannot Defend Their Faith And May Become Critics Instead Of Defenders!

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

Exclamation Points

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?

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

God's Extraordinary Work Is Most Often Done By Ordinary People In The Seeming Obscurity Of A Home And Family.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

. . . 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.)

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

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

Brigham Young Observed, "man's Machinery Makes Things Alike" (jd 9:370), While God Gives To Seemingly Like Individuals Pleasing Differences. Secularism Is No Friend Of Righteous Individuality.

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

We Should Certainly Count Our Blessings, But We Should Also Make Our Blessings Count.

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!"

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

Education Brightens A Darkened World.

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.)

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!'

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.

God Will Facilitate, But He Will Not Force.

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

One Day The Faithful Will Have It All!

We Tend To Think Of Consecration Only As Yielding Up, When Divinely Directed, Our Material Possessions. But Ultimate Consecration Is The Yielding Up Of Oneself To God. Heart, Soul, And Mind Were The Encompassing Words Of Christ In Describing The First Commandment, Which Is Constantly, Not Periodically, Operative (see Matt. 22:37). If Kept, Then Our Performances Will, In Turn, Be Fully Consecrated For The Lasting Welfare Of Our Souls (see 2 Ne. 32:9).

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

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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. . . .

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.

The Soul Is Like A Violin String: It Makes Music Only When It Is Stretched.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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

Faith In God Includes Faith In God's Timing.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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."

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

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

A Society Which Permits Anything Will Eventually Lose Everything.

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.

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

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

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

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.

All Crosses Are Easier To Carry When We Keep Moving.

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.

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).

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.

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