SundayDec 14, 2025
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Neal Ash Maxwell (July 6, 1926 - July 21, 2004) was an apostle and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1981 until his death.
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.
Unproductive worry like Parkinson's proverbial law tends to expand to fill the time available.
Sometimes we are so busy being the hammer or the anvil, that we forget who really needs the shaping.
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 sufferingwhich, indeed, lies all about us. Such individuals almost dare God to demonstrate His existence by straightening things outand 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).
There is no democracy of facts.
We should not assume; however, that just because something is unexplainable by us, it is unexplainable.
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.
It is better to trust and sometimes be disappointed than to be forever mistrusting and be right occasionally.
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.
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.
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.
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. Regarding writing down thoughts and ideas: often we never recover what came to us once and went unused. What is the wisest use I can make of this sliver of time? Commit rather explicitly to goals.
Spent timelike a spent bullettells 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.
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.
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.
Those who believe for a while make only a brief tour in the kingdom, though thereafter they often feel qualified to inform those who know even less about the Church; but the fact is they were really only tourists not natives who really knew the kingdoms countryside.
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.' (Alma 7:25)
Submissiveness to God enables us to govern ourselves.... Lacking this capacity we vulnerable, like 'a city which is broken down, and without walls' (Proverbs 25:28). 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.
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 unearnedeither 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.
The strait and narrow path, though clearly marked, is a path, not a freeway nor an escalator. Indeed, there are times when the only way the strait and narrow path can be followed is on one's knees! And we are to help each other along the path.
Those of little faith mistake local cloud cover for general darkness. Keeping spiritually intact results in our keeping precious perspective by seeing 'things as they really are.' (Jacob 4:13)
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!
When our minds really catch hold of the significance of Jesus atonement, the worlds hold on us loosens.
In contrast to the path of selfishness, there is no room for road rage on the straight and narrow way.
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?
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.
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 could there be refining fires without our enduring some heat?
When at length we tire of putting people down, this self-inflicted fatigue can give way to the invigorating calisthenics of lifting people up.
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.
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.
Yet, seeing this ingratitude of those who are without perspective should not cause us to make reflexive rejoinders to unbelievers. Rather, we, for our part, ought to contemplate how truly deep God's commitment to free agency must be, how truly deep (and u
We are all aware of man's poor peripheral vision in that his views are often narrow and heedless of what is going on on each side of him. Man's problem is often one of length of view, too. This poorness of perspective often produces wonderful and pathetic paradoxes: men who have been given the blessings of life by the grace of God, cry that life is senseless; men who have been given breath and voice by God, use the powers of speech to deny God's existence; men who have been given the capacity to feel, exult so much in this gift that sensual things sublimate spiritual things; and some men who see our reaching out to distant places in our solar system conclude that this special planet is a random, unplanned mutant and refuse to connect the order of physical laws (that makes such journeys into space possible) with an Orderer.
Our little pebble of poor performance helps to start, or to sustain, an avalanche.
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!
It is so easy to be confrontive without being informative; indignant without being intelligent; impulsive without being insightful.
The dues of discipleship are high indeed, and how much we can take so often determines how much we can then give.
Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing!
Patience is, therefore, clearly not fatalistic, shoulder-shrugging resignation; it is accepting a divine rhythm to life; it is obedience prolonged.
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.
Blessed is he who will not be offended.
A patient willingness to defer dividends is a hallmark of individual maturity.
You must not mistake passing local cloud cover, for general darkness.
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).
We cant dwell upon anothers ingratitude without using up our time and talents unprofitably.
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.
Celestial criteria measures service, not status.
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 officersthe chosenand 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?
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.
When we rejoice in great music and art, it is but the flexing of instincts learned in the previous life.
We are here in mortality, and the only way to go is through; there isnt any around.
Conscience warns us not to sink our cleats too deeply in mortal turf, which is so dangerously artificial.
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....
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....
In moments of truth, when meekness matters, other forces, including pride, flow into the chemistry of that moment. Take, for instance, the matter of receiving correct counsel, whether given by a spouse, a family member, a friend, or a Church leader. Often
C. S. Lewis put it well when he gave us the analogy of remodeling the human soul and a living house: 'Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.' (Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1960], p. 174.)
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!
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 Gods help.
At times Gods best pupils experience the most rigorous and continuous courses. Eventually those who prove to be men of Christ will thereby become distinguished alumni of lifes school of affliction, graduating with honors.
By seeing lifes experiences 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 has given each of us to do. However, our tiny cup cannot be taken from us either. For this reason have we come unto the world.
The mortal experience ... is not like a college course which we can passively audit. Instead, we are taking lifes course for credit and there are no summers off not even semester breaks.
Letting off steam always produces more heat than light.
It is our job to lift others up, not to size them up.
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.
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. (Moses 4;1).
One simply cannot come to a cause like the kingdom of God, with its celestial concepts, and not appreciate and identify with what Ammon said: 'Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.'
Ultimate hope constitutes the anchor of the soul.
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 of the peacemaking of women in home 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.
The harrowing of the soul can be like the harrowing of the soil; to increase the yield, things are turned upside down.
Gods anger is kindled not because we have harmed him but because we have harmed ourselves.
We are in bondage to that which overcomes us. See also 2 Peter 2:19.
... 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.)
The 'new' in us is bound to notice the 'old' that remains.
It is not the years but the changes that make us grow.
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.
Mother lode of learning.
Gospel guard rails.
The Gospel will ... bring comfort to the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Oh, how great the plan of our God!
Of all the errors one could make, God's gospel plan is the wrong thing to be wrong about.
To be cheerful when others are in despair, to keep the faith when others falter, to be true even when we feel forsakenall of these are deeply desired outcomes during the deliberate, divine tutorials which God gives to us because he love us.
... Our God is a God of love. He waits with open arms, and the unfolding of His merciful plan of salvation is not only therefore the mark of divine power but also the mark of God's relentless, redeeming love. It is a point well worth pondering because, among other reasons, it will help us to understand better why God, through the prophets, denounces sin and corruption in such scalding terms. He loves all of us, His spirit sons and daughters, but hates our vices. His denunciation of those vices may, if we are not careful, seem to obscure the enormous and perfect love He has for us.
Do not let the future be held hostage by the past.
Each day I see all about me the fruits of commandment-keeping.
Some mistakenly misread the mercy and graciousness of God. For instance, some partial believers are always scolding God, or disregarding Him, because of the observable and lamentable consequences of our misuse of God's gift to us of moral agency. It is as if a teenage son, given his first car, promptly had an accident with resulting pain, suffering, and expense, and the errant son then railed at his father for permitting the suffering resulting from the son's misuse of the gift of the automobile. Granted, in defense of the analogy, mortal parents ought not to give youngsters automobiles too soon, and then only when they have provided wise counsel, driver training, and so on. But there still comes a time when, if they are ever to drive alone, trained teenagers must be left alone at the wheel. The principle is the same with us in the second estate.
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. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance given through Joseph that God, who knows we 'cannot bear all things now,' will not over program us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear. (D&C 50:40) The doctrine of foreordination is not a doctrine of repose; instead, it is a doctrine for second- and third-milers, and it will draw out of them the last full measure of devotion. It is a doctrine for the deep believer but it will bring only scorn from the skeptic.
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 doctrine of foreordination is not a doctrine of repose; instead, it is a doctrine for second- and third-milers, and it will draw out of them the last full measure of devotion. It is a doctrine for the deep believer but it will bring only scorn from the skeptic.
There are also flat periods in life which may well be the periods during whichbefore 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. Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow. An experience is thus not only endured but also absorbed and perused, almost unconsciously, for its value. Such a process takes time. Therefore it is we, not God, who need more time.
Don't fear, just live right.
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 [Gods] will.'
The authority of example and considerations of character, unlike pudding, are not whipped up in an instant.
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.
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.
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!
Those few members who desert the cause are abandoning an oasis to search for water in the desert.
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.
Defectors often cause more difficulty than disinterested disbelievers.
For the faithful, our finest hours are sometimes during or just following our darkest hours.
We must endure the contempt of others without reciprocating that contempt.
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.
Helpful Communications Shortcuts: A. Asking the other person who is sorting out his alternatives what his recommendation is at that time, leaving him free to either describe and defend his viewpoint or back away from it. Getting 'fact and feeling' out on the table can save time-consuming preliminaries. B. Observing, to the other person, that while his recommendation is clear, his careful thought that produced the proposal must also have raised some concerns and, therefore, 'What are the concerns he has or the defects in the proposal?' This can also give an indication of the objectivity and thoroughness with which the other person has approached the challenge. C. Asking courteously, when needed, for clarification if it seems that the real problem is being circumvented with unnecessary delay.
If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.
Why is it that for many persons changing others is so exciting and so relevant, while changing oneself is so boring and irrelevant?
At the center of our agency is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward whatever circumstances we are placed in!
Anger should never be an overnight guest.
Therefore, 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
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 despairand the moment of gravest danger is when there is so little light that darkness seems normal!
All crosses are easier to carry when we keep moving.
When we dont 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.
The great physician, Dr. Henry G. Armitage, Jr., states, 'Not without comment shall it come to pass that a state (so fretful for the preservation of the praying mantis but holding an unborn baby to be of no account) can send a spark of immortality swinging out into limbo and conspire with citizen and physician to turn a fragile, living object of simple innocence and complex wonder into a pathetic pulp and consign it by rude and peremptory passage to the furnace or sewer unknown, unwanted [and] undefended.' He further questions how a woman as 'the fertile adornment of our race can be deluded into the notion that she is a mere poetress of unwanted luggage or be by blandishment seduced into believing that she has dominion over life not her own.' He says, 'An abortion is never commonplace, for the world holds no heartbreak like the death of innocence.'
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.'
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.
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!'
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!
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