Continue in Patience, Until We Are Perfect......

We know that despite our best intentions, things do not always go according to plan. We make mistakes in life. Occasionally we stumble and fall short.

When the Lord advises us to “continue in patience until [we] are perfected,” ⁶ He is acknowledging that it takes time and perseverance. Understanding the why of the gospel will help us to see the divine purpose of all of this. It will give us motivation and strength to do the right things, even when they are hard. Staying focused on the basic principles of gospel living will bless us with clarity, wisdom, and direction.

The Why of Priesthood Service, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Ensign, May, 2012

Faith....

There are times when we have to step into the darkness in faith, confident that God will place solid ground beneath our feet once we do.

The Why of Priesthood Service, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Ensign, May, 2012

Recycling Regrets.....

Recycling regrets doesn’t change reality. Pawing through the past is not productive…. Thus an insight dawned, although not all at once, showing me that too much attention to what might have been actually gets in the way of what still can be. Those valleys you and I are sometimes in are really the sloping sides of hills to be climbed, with as little muttering as possible.

Insights from My Life, NEAL A. MAXWELL, B Y U, 26 October 1976.

Reaching Out.....

Our merciful and long-suffering Lord is ever ready to help. His “arm is lengthened out all the day long” (2 Ne. 28:32), and even if His arm goes ungrasped, it was unarguably there! In the same redemptive reaching out, our desiring to improve our human relationships usually requires some long-suffering. Sometimes reaching out is like trying to pat a porcupine. Even so, the accumulated quill marks are evidence that our hands of fellowship have been stretched out, too!

It is up to us. Therein lies life’s greatest and most persistent challenge. Thus when people are described as “having lost their desire for sin,” it is they, and they only, who deliberately decided to lose those wrong desires by being willing to “give away all [their] sins” in order to know God (Alma 22:18).

Neal A. Maxwell, “‘According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts’,” Ensign, Nov 1996, 21

Lord Will Gentle place HIS Hand.....

As a General Authority of the church, I share these stories with you to give you a sense of hope. You may appreciate hearing them if you have lived, or currently live, under similar circumstances to my family’s. Some of you may think every General Authority comes from either Joseph Fielding Smith’s family or the Young’s, that perhaps these slots are reserved for particular people. I think there are some people on whose shoulders the Lord gently places His hand. I guess it doesn’t matter where we come from. I had an alcoholic father and came from a divorced home. While growing up, I sometimes wondered if it were possible for me to do anything in the church. I felt inferior. Somehow, though, it doesn’t matter where we come from. God will reach out his hand and place it on our shoulders.

Vaughn J. Featherstone, as quoted in “Hold on to Hope,” p42

Parenthood.....

Choosing to be happy brings peace and increases parents’ ability to deal effectively with their adult children.

The Lord’s plan for us has been designated a “plan of happiness” (see Alma 42:8, 16). If we are not generally happy and are not suffering from a clinical illness, perhaps the solution is to let the Lord’s plan work more fully in our lives. Even those suffering from clinical depression can still be blessed by obedience to the plan. Happiness can come through drawing near to the Lord and needn’t be dependent on our external circumstances.

The Proper Focus

As Latter-day Saints, we should realize the importance of our lifelong responsibility and find appropriate ways to be involved in the lives of our adult children. When we focus our lives on Jesus Christ and seek to offer our “whole souls” to Him (see Omni 1:26), our ability to love our children with His pure love is enhanced. This, in turn, increases our sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Ghost as we make decisions. If we are prayerful and try to do our best, the Lord will help us, and we can feel good about our efforts, regardless of the choices our children may make.

“Is it simply unintended forgetfulness? Or is it a failure of intellectual integrity by our refusing to review and to acknowledge past blessings? Or is it a lack of meekness which requires the repetition of such stern lessons, because we neglect the milder and gentler signs beckoning us to ‘remember Him’?

“We need the Spirit daily to help us remember daily. Otherwise memory lapses will occur when we are most vulnerable. It is not natural to the natural man to remember yesterday’s blessings gratefully, especially when today’s needs of the flesh press steadily upon him. 

From: Ensign, July 2006, Families are forever and so is parenthood

” (Lord, Increase Our Faith. Pp 101-102) Neal A. Maxwell.

Despair....

Despair--how many of us suffer from it? Yet we do not realize that it is purely the absence of faith. We cannot despair as long as we are willing to turn to God for help in our extremity. When we are troubled, and can’t see a way out, it is only because we imagine that all solutions depend upon us. We must remind ourselves that our human wisdom and ingenuity have often failed to bring the hoped for results.

Perhaps our too-heavy burdens have made us lose what faith we once had in our Heavenly Father. Perhaps faith was never a part of our lives and we are not convinced we need it.

The reality and efficacy of faith, as a force for good, can be demonstrated. When we let go of an overwhelming problem and let God handle it for us, we find that Divine Principle truly has a part in our lives.

A natural faith is indeed a gift, yet it is never denied to those who feel the need of something to cling to and are willing to reach out for it. Knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive. When I consciously surrender my will to God’s will, I see faith at work in my life.

God answers our prayers for our best good. When what we perceive as a bad outcome may be exactly what needs to happen so that we (or our loved one) can become who God knows we can become. Where there is no struggle there is no strength.

Be Comforted.....

Sometimes making it through a divorce or another kind of family difficulty is a matter of simply hanging on. Hang on to the reality that your Heavenly Father loves you and your family deeply and eternally.

Often, my prayers for my family seemed to go unanswered. Sometimes, the more I prayed, the worse things seemed to get. I didn’t know then that, though the Lord shares our sorrow, he will not force change. But over time, his love can often find a way to bring even greater blessings than we had prayed for. So many of those fervent prayers of long ago have now been answered. And I now know that he has never ceased trying to bless my loved ones.

Hang on to the scriptures that fill you with faith. For example, “Let your hearts be comforted; for all things shall work together for good to them that walk uprightly” (D&C 100:15).

Find music that feeds your spirit. How many nights I found peace by singing to myself, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet, silver song of the lark. Walk on through the wind. Walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone. You’ll never walk alone” (Rodgers and Hammerstein, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,”

In A Blink........

Everything can change in the blink                      of an eye. But don't worry.....God never blinks.

Addiction....Spiritual Damage....

Addictions, by their very nature, go beyond the physical and the psychological. A couple of famous psychologists suggested that addictions cause pain in the heart of those who struggle. This is interesting phraseology because it references potential heart or spiritual damage. This is particularly fascinating because the observation of spiritual damage emerged from secular scientists. And secular scientists very seldom acknowledge the importance of religion or spiritual needs.

A careful look at addictions demonstrates that addictions, by their very nature, attack agency or choice. They lead the individual to distorted patterns of thinking that he or she does not have any choice in the matter and must give into the addictions. That is, individuals define themselves in terms of their addictions. I would caution you not to define yourself in terms of your addictions---you are much more than any struggle that you might have.

Willpower or Heartpower? A. Dean Byrd, June 21, 2008

A Promise....

God Promises a Safe Landing, not a Calm 

Passage!

The will of God never takes you to where 

the Grace of God will not protect you!

Resentment.....

So it is with divine communication. The still, small voice, though still and small, is very powerful. It “whispereth through and pierceth all things.” ¹³ But like my old crystal set, the message may be there but we fail to pick it up. Perhaps something in our lives prevents us from hearing the message because we are “past feeling.” ¹⁴ We often put ourselves in spiritual dead spots—places and situations that block out divine messages. Some of these dead spots include anger (resentment, resentment, resentment, self-pity, self-doubt), pornography, transgression, selfishness, and other situations that offend the Spirit.

President James E. Faust, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, Ensign, May, 2004