Mormon Musings

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/purified-by-fire-john-taylor/

To those who may feel they have somehow forfeited their place at the table of the Lord, we say again with the Prophet  Joseph Smith  that God has “a forgiving disposition,”    that Christ is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, [is] long-suffering and full of goodness.”    I have always loved that when Matthew records Jesus’ great injunction, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,”   Luke adds the Savior’s additional commentary: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful”   19   —as if to suggest that mercy is at least a beginning synonym for the perfection God has and for which all of us must strive. Mercy, with its sister virtue  forgiveness , is at the very heart of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the eternal plan of salvation. Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past. Now, if you feel too sp

Periodically, we too will experience a measure of irony, that hard crust on the bread of adversity. Jesus met irony constantly as He was taunted by circumstances. For instance, this earth is Jesus’ footstool, but at Bethlehem there was “no room … in the inn” and “no crib for his bed,” as “foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” ( Luke 2:7 ;  Hymns,  no. 206;  Luke 9:58 ; see also  Acts 7:49–50 ). The Most Innocent suffered the most when some of His subjects did unto Him “as they listed” ( D&C 49:6 ). Bearer of the only salvational name, yet the Lord of the Universe lived modestly as a person “of no reputation” ( Philip. 2:7 ; see also  Acts 4:12 ; 2 Ne. 25:20 ;  Abr. 3:27 ).  Christ  “constructed” the universe, yet in little Galilee He was known merely as “the carpenter’s son” ( Matt. 13:55 ). You and I, when impacted by lesser irony, are so much more brittle, often forgetting that some tests by their very nature are

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.” C.S. Lewis

If life gets too hard to stand, kneel. Gordon B. Hinckley

We're not doubting that God will do the best for us, we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. C.S. Lewis

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/storms-of-life-give-us-the-requisite-experience/

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/mountains-to-climb?lang=eng

Do you suppose I am sorry because of persecution? No: I never was in my life; but I have thanked God a thousand times that the Devil is not yet bound; for if he had been, the Saints would have gone to sleep; and if there could be such a thing, they would have been blotted out of existence, with all their intelligence, and the earth have received them into its bowels. Light, knowledge, truth, wickedness of every kind, the works of the Almighty, and the works of the Devil, all conspire to roll on the great work that the Lord Jesus Christ is doing upon the earth,—every person and power in their own order. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 6:270

All of us have problems.  We face them every day.  How grateful I am that we have difficult things to wrestle with.  They keep us young, if that is possible.  They keep us alive.  They keep us going.  They keep us humble.  They pull us down to our knees to ask the God of Heaven for help in solving them.  Be grateful for your problems, and know that somehow there will come a solution. President Gordon B. Hinckley, CES Training, February 7, 2003

http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/waiting-upon-the-lord-thy-will-be-done?lang=eng#44-PD50029123_000_4020

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!" Neal A Maxwell (Ensign, May 1991, p. 88)

The crucial test of life, I repeat, does not center in the choice between fame and obscurity, nor between wealth and poverty. The greatest decision of life is between good and evil. We may foolishly bring unhappiness and trouble, even suffering upon ourselves. These are not always to be regarded as penalties imposed by a displeased Creator. They are part of the lessons of life, part of the test. Some are tested by poor health, some by a body that is deformed or homely. Others are tested by handsome and healthy bodies; some by the passion of youth; others by the erosions of age.  Some suffer disappointment in marriage, family problems; others live in poverty and obscurity.  Some (perhaps this is the hardest test) find ease and luxury. All are part of the test, and there is more equality in this testing than sometimes we suspect. Boyd K. Packer, October 1980 General Conference

But here comes the command of God to this man [Abraham] who has been taught so scrupulously about the sinfulness of murder and human sacrifice, do to these very things.  Now, why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham?  Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, [God] was determined to test [Abraham].  God did not do this for His own sake; for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but the purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson, and to enable him to attain unto knowledge he could not obtain in any other way.  That is why God tries all of us.  It is not for His own knowledge; for He knows all things beforehand.  He knows all your lives and everything you will do.  But He tries us for our own good, that we may know ourselves; for it is most important that a man should know himself.  He required Abraham to submit to his trial because He intended to give him glory, exaltation and honor; He intended to make him

"Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. In order to be tested, we must sometimes face challenges and difficulties. At times there appears to be no light at the tunnel's end—no dawn to break the night's darkness. We feel surrounded by the pain of broken hearts, the disappointment of shattered dreams, and the despair of vanished hopes. We join in uttering the biblical plea 'Is there no balm in Gilead?' (Jeremiah 8:22). We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We feel abandoned, heartbroken, alone. If you find yourself in such a situation, I plead with you to turn to our Heavenly Father in faith. He will lift you and guide you. He will not always take your afflictions from you, but He will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face." Thomas S. Monson ,  "Looking Back and Moving Forward," Ensign, May 200

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/485/

"From your study of Church history, you will all know something of the experience the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brethren had while imprisoned in [Liberty Jail] during the winter of 1838–39. This was a terribly difficult time in our history for the Church generally and certainly for the Prophet Joseph himself, who bore the brunt of the persecution in that period. Indeed, I daresay that until his martyrdom five and a half years later, there was no more burdensome time in Joseph's life than this cruel, illegal, and unjustified incarceration in Liberty Jail. . . . "Most of us, most of the time, speak of the facility at Liberty as a 'jail' or a 'prison'—and certainly it was that. But Elder Brigham H. Roberts, in recording the history of the Church, spoke of the facility as a temple, or, more accurately, a 'prison-temple.' . . . "But tonight's message is that when you have to, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experienc

We talk about experience, and we have had a great deal of experience, and we are constantly in the school of experience. But I am inclined to think that it may be the case with us in that school as in other schools. We sometimes improve by what we experience, adding to our store of knowledge; and then, again, we may experience very considerable from which we derive no particular benefit, like the scholar that attends school, but from inattention, a failure to apply himself properly to his lessons and to the acquirement of the knowledge that is imparted, he fails to comprehend the truth to the extent that he might otherwise have done; and hence he is not benefited to the extent that he might have been, although he has been in the school. Well, as Saints and as children of God, we are in the school; and if there is any higher purpose connected with our being in the school—connected with living in the world, and connected with all our labours in the world, and what we are supposed to be h

We are placed here on the earth that we may be tested. We are very independent beings, we have our agency, and can choose the road to life or the road to death, just as we please. If we would secure eternal life we shall have to take a course to command the confidence of our Father in heaven, and to accomplish this, we must not be weary in well doing, for it is said that only they who endure will receive the reward. Endure what? Why, the trials, temptations and difficulties that we may have to encounter in the path which the Gospel marks out. Our path, as followers of the Savior, is beset with evil on every side, and with influences which, if yielded to, will bring us under the power of the oppressor. They may seem alluring, to a greater or less extent, and so they are, for the power of evil has great influence in the earth. The wealth of the earth has long been controlled by the evil one, and he has bestowed it upon whomsoever he has seen fit. Perhaps this has been ordered so in the e

God speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. C.S. Lewis