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Showing posts with the label Blessings

the ways of God (Bednar)

Sometimes we may ask God for success, and He gives us physical and mental stamina. We might plead for prosperity, and we receive enlarged perspective and increased patience, or we petition for growth and are blessed with the gift of grace. He may bestow upon us conviction and confidence as we strive to achieve worthy goals. And when we plead for relief from physical, mental, and spiritual difficulties, He may increase our resolve and resilience.   David A. Bednar,  The Windows of Heaven https://www. churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ general-conference/2013/10/ the-windows-of-heaven?id=p12# p12

help from The Lord generally comes in increments (Scott)

Help from the Lord generally comes in increments. He can immediately cure serious illnesses or disabilities or even allow the dead to be raised. But the general pattern is that improvement comes in sequential steps. That plan gives us an opportunity to discover what the Lord expects us to learn. It requires our patience to recognize His timetable. It provides growth from our efforts and trust in Him and the opportunity to express gratitude for the help given. Often we have difficulty mastering lessons the Lord wants us to learn when things are going too well in our lives. When there is suffering or pain, we ask ourselves a lot of questions. Some of them ought to be: What does the Lord want me to learn from this experience? What do I need to do? What do I need to change? Whom do I need to serve? Or what characteristic must I improve? Pondering and prayer will help us understand what we are to learn from the challenges we are asked to overcome.

protection from Heaven, if we live as we believe (Brigham Young)

"If we live our religion, walk in the light of the Lord’s countenance, day by day, so as to have fellowship with our Father and His Son Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost, and with every good being in heaven and on earth, let me tell you that hell may spew and bellow, and the devils may howl, and they cannot scathe you and me any more than a few crickets.  But, to enjoy the protection of the Almighty, we have got to live our religion–to live so that we have the mind of Christ within us." Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 4:358

The Blessings of Commandments (Oaks)

 "I made up my mind at that time that I would observe the Sabbath faithfully so that I could qualify for the blessings of spiritual growth and the companionship of the Spirit that come from observing faithfully the Sabbath of our Lord. I testify to you that I realized those blessings in measurable ways on innumerable occasions. My concern for the Sabbath is to earn the blessings available to those who observe it, not to keep myself from sinning. My attitude is to look on the commandment of the Sabbath as a gift of my Heavenly Father to teach me what I should do if I want to enjoy his richest blessings. That is the attitude I encourage each of us to develop toward each of our Father in heaven’s commandments." —Dallin H. Oaks "The Blessing of Commandments" http://speeches.byu.edu/ ?act=viewitem&id=569

security on the Lord's side (George Albert Smith)

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only means by which we may hope to find a place in the celestial kingdom. Sometimes we feel that we are sure of it because we have membership in the Church. I take this occasion to call to the attention of the older members of the Church, who have lived a part of their lives and feel quite secure, the fact that nobody is secure unless he is on the Lord's side of the line (   Ex. 32:26 ). President George Albert Smith, April 1950 General Conference

we shall fight in the shade (Maxwell)

“One man has said that 'hell is being frozen in self-pity.'  Indeed, at times when we think our lot is hard or when we feel ourselves misunderstood, it will be so easy for us to indulge ourselves in feeling some self-pity.  A contrasting episode comes to us out of ancient Greece: several hundred Spartans were holding the pass at Thermopylae, that narrow pass, and the Persians came in overwhelming numbers and urged the Spartans to surrender.  Hoping to intimidate them further, the Persians sent emissaries to the Spartans, saying they had so many archers in their army they could darken the sky with their arrows. The Spartans said, 'So much the better. We shall fight in the shade.'   Now, brothers and sisters, the disciple has to be ready to fight in the shade of circumstance.  One of the ways we can have perspective that will permit us to fight in the shade of circumstances is to read the scriptures and have involvement—intellectually and spiritually—with the case studi

the blessings prepared for us (Lorenzo Snow)

I presume to say that we do not all of us fully comprehend the blessings and privileges that are prepared in the Gospel for us to receive. We do not fully comprehend and we do not have before our view the things which await us in the eternal worlds, nor, indeed, the things which await us in this life and that are calculated to promote our peace and happiness and to answer the desires of our hearts… We frequently, in the multitude of cares around us, get forgetful, and these things are not before us; then we do not comprehend that the Gospel is designed and calculated in its nature to bestow upon us those things that will bring glory, honor, and exaltation—that will bring peace and glory. We are apt to forget these things in the midst of the cares and vexations of life; and we do not fully understand that it is our privilege, and that the Lord has placed it in our reach to pursue that Gospel whereby we may have peace within us continually. All this trouble and vexation of mind is

all blessings to the faithful (Lorenzo Snow)

“There is no Latter day Saint who dies after having lived a faithful life who will lose anything because of having failed to do certain things when opportunities were not furnished him or her. In other words, if a young man or a young woman has no opportunity of getting married, and they live faithful lives up to the time of their death, they will have all the blessings, exaltation, and glory that any man or woman will have who had this opportunity and improved it. That is sure and positive.”  (   The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow,  ed. Clyde J. Williams [1984], 138. ) 

not coincidence but instead divine design

Within each of our circles of friendship there lie so many unused opportunities to love, to serve, and to be taught.  Indeed, one could apply the scriptural phrase about there being "enough and to spare" (D&C 104:17).  None of us ever fully utilizes the people--opportunities allocated to us within our circles of friendship.  You and I may call these intersecting "coincidence."  This word is understandable for mortals to use, but coincidence is not an appropriate word to describe the workings of an omniscient God.  He does not do things by "coincidence," but instead by "divine design".   Elder Neal A. Maxwell, "Brim With Joy" (BYU Devotional January 23, 1996)

we cannot say the smallest part which we feel

No wonder, given its intellectual expansiveness, we are still inventorying the harvest basket of the Restoration! Having dashed about the wonder-filled landscape of the Restoration, exclaiming and observing, it should not surprise us if some of our first impressions prove to be more childish than definitive. Brushing against such tall timber, the scent of pine is inevitably upon us. Our pockets are filled with souvenir cones and colorful rocks, and we are filled with childish glee. There is no way to grasp it all. Little wonder some of us mistake a particular tree for the whole of the forest, or that in our exclamations there are some unintended exaggerations. We have seen far too much to describe. Indeed, we "cannot say the smallest part which [we] feel" (Alma 26:16). Elder Neal A. Maxwell, "Brim With Joy" (BYU Devotional, January 23, 1996)

Broken Bows

Laman and Lemuel were angry when Nephi broke his bow (1 Nephi 16:18).   Yet Laman and Lemuel were apparently not self-critical when their own bows had earlier “lost their springs,” nor is there any record of their trying to make new bows to feed their families (1 Nephi 16:21).   One can almost hear them saying, “Let Nephi do it.   This trip was his idea.”   Life’s broken bows can create resentment, as if we have given God a quota of irritants that He must not exceed.   Hence, in our frustrations, some of us murmur over our own equivalents of broken bows.   These hyperventilating moments use up some of the oxygen provided by God’s lending us breath from moment to moment (Mosiah 2:21).   Because God has said He will try our patience and our faith, how should we view such irritating trials? (Mosiah 23:21)   Furthermore, if there were never any broken bows, how else would we be brought to perform certain spiritual calisthenics? Broken bows litter the landscape of our lives, representing

The tender mercies of the Lord

" The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.  The Lord is good to all : and His tender mercies are over all of his works ."   Psalms 145: 8-9 (emphasis added) " ...the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom He hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."  1 Nephi 1:20 "We should not underestimate or overlook the power of the Lord’s tender mercies. The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live. When words cannot provide the solace we need or express the joy we feel, when it is simply futile to attempt to explain that which is unexplainable, when logic and reason cannot yield adequate understanding about the injustices and inequities of life, when mortal experience and evaluation are insufficient to produce a desired outcome, a