FridayOct 16, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Truman G. Madsen (b. 1926) is a retired professor of religion and philosophy at Brigham Young University. He is a prolific author, a recognized authority on Joseph Smith, and a popular lecturer among Latter-day Saints.
When we have enough confidence in the discerning power of the Spirit, we stop worrying so much about forms and are concerned more to open up what is really deep within us, things that we cannot even find words or sounds for. Then the Spirit translates and transmits our strivings. We can take our strivings, even those we cannot express, and know that as we silently, prayerfully direct them toward the Father and the Son, the Spirit will translate them perfectly. In turn, the Spirit can communicate the Lord's response as can no other power. A great confidence and a great freedom can come when we trust the Spirit for that.
The greatest tragedy of life is that, having paid that awful price of suffering 'according to the flesh that his bowels might be filled with compassion,' and being now prepared to reach down and help us, he is forbidden because we won't let him. We look down instead of up.
I have faith that if we caught hold of God's living candle on that truth and went out into the worldI don't care [what vocation] just out in the world being true to the vision, we would not need to defend the cause of Jesus Christ. People would come and ask; 'Where have you found the radiance that I sense in your eyes and in your face? How come you don't get carried away with the world?' And we would answer that the work of salvation is the glorious work of Jesus Christ. But it is also the glorious work of the uncovering and recovering of your own latent divinity.
There is no final solution to loneliness until you recognize that you need the resources which are in yourself to enpy, within limits, being alone being the kind of person that you like to be with, and reaching out to others, not in a grasping way, but in an attempt to be meaningful and loving and of service in their lives.
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